


In Shadows & Starlight

by magicalmolly



Category: Beetlejuice (1988), Beetlejuice - All Media Types
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Kissing, Mentions of Suicide, Romance, Sexual Content, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:01:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27681116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicalmolly/pseuds/magicalmolly
Summary: On a cold, lonely winter night alone in New York City, a 21 year old Lydia Deetz hears ghosts howling in her walls. When her neighbor Danny confines in her that he can hear them too they decide to try and find the spirits and help them move on to the other side. But there is one ghost haunting the building that refuses to be put to rest. The Ghost with the Most is back, and he's come to collect to the promise Lydia made him four years ago.
Relationships: Beetlejuice & Lydia Deetz, Beetlejuice/Lydia Deetz
Comments: 36
Kudos: 82





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will update every 1-2 weeks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There are witches in the wind."  
> -Mary Shelley Movie (2017)

Lydia awoke to the sound of screams. She wished this was a rare occurrence, but the sounds of agony in the night had become so constant in her tiny, drafty apartment that she wondered if they were etched into the very walls that surrounded her.

She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes, trying to tune in to the sound. She had almost fully honed in on it when there was a very real banging on her door. The sound was so startling she almost fell out of bed.

She quickly wrapped her black silk robe around herself and headed for the door. She stood on tiptoe to look through the peephole to see if it was a ghost or a murderer or a murderous ghost. It was none of the above that she could tell. It was some cliche looking punk rocker boy with more eyeliner than her and arms covered in macabre tattoos. He was as pale as her and wearing ripped black jeans and black fishnet top over a black crop top. His hair was as inky midnight as hers and his eyes were a piercing green like a violent forest in spring. Nothing but enchanting copse staring back at her.

She decided her life was boring enough to risk being murdered by a cute punk rocker cliche. She opened the door and before she could ask who the hell he was, the cliche spoke.

“Do you hear it too?”  


“I…what?” 

“The screaming?”  


“Um…” Lydia shifted from foot to foot, her bare feet quickly growing cold against the wood floor. “Who are you?”  


“Oh, sorry. I’m Danny.”  


“And why do you think I can hear screaming, Danny?”  


“Because you’re Lydia Deetz.”

Well, that was a new one.

“I fail to see how that answers my question. I also don’t get how you know who I am.”  


“I just moved in. Saw you by the mailboxes, asked around. People like to talk about the mad woman in the attic.” He said this last line with a smirk.

Lydia rolled her eyes. “This is hardly the attic.”

“It’s literally the attic of this apartment building.”  


“Calling this an _apartment building_ seems like a bit of a stretch.”  


At that he laughed. Lydia couldn’t help but crack a smile as she leaned against the doorframe. “Yes, _Danny,_ I can hear the screaming.”  


He sighed. “That’s a relief. I knew there were rumors you could talk to ghosts, it’s exciting to know it’s true.”  


“I never said I could talk to ghosts.”  


“Oh. Well, can you?”  


“Yes.”  


He laughed again and this time so did Lydia. 

“So you woke me up because you want someone to live out this gothic novel night with you?” Danny nodded. Lydia rolled her eyes again, but this time with a smile still on her face, and stepped back, holding her door open wide for Danny to come in.

Danny grinned at her and stepped past her into her small studio apartment that admittedly _was_ an attic. She locked the door behind her and wondered just how stupid her loneliness had made her to think that this was a good idea. 

“So when did you move in?”  


“A week or so ago,” he said absentmindedly as he walked over to her bookshelf and began to drag his fingers along the spines. “What’s your favorite?” He asked.

“There’s too many to have a favorite.”  


He shot her a knowing look. “All bookworms have a favorite.”  


“Peter Pan.”  


“Ah, a classic.”

“Have you read it?” 

“Once,” he said, shifting to walk towards the kitchenette portion of her home. “When I was a kid. You into escapist literature, Lydia?”

Lydia nodded. “The real world is boring.”

Danny nodded. “Want tea?” He asked.

Lydia smirked. “Shouldn’t I be offering you some? How do you even know I have some?”

“The literary lady in the attic doesn’t have tea for her gothic manor nights?”  
Danny smiled at her yet again and Lydia couldn’t help but let another genuinely joyous laugh escape her mouth. “Second cupboard.”  
Soon her and Danny were nestled on her small couch sipping chai tea as the wind whistled by her windows, blending in with the sounds of the screaming in the walls.

“So you definitely think it’s a ghost?” Danny asked.

“What else would it be?”  


Danny shrugged, sipping his tea. “A demon. A goblin.”  


Lydia rolled her eyes. “A werewolf. A vampire. A fairy.”

Danny knocked his knee against hers. “Okay, smart ass, ghost it is. Have you ever seen a ghost before?”  


“Yes,” Lydia said without hesitation. 

Back home before she’d left for the city, her parents had made it clear that the incidents of her 17th summer were not to be talked about with anyone. No one was to know what had commenced there; which considering how her parents had tried to market The Maitlands’ house as a ghost haunting extravaganza, it was safe to say she found the whole thing astronomically hypocritical.

She had sought comfort from her continually distant and dismissive father and step-mother in The Maitlands but even they didn’t understand her enough to ever truly help her. And when she dared bring up Beetlejuice she was shot down immediately. _Never say his name, Lydia._ They always chided her. But sometimes at night when her loneliness reached a peak so high she couldn’t see the ground, she’d lay in bed and speak his name two times in a row, letting the third time get trapped behind her teeth. 

And then there was the night she turned eighteen and stood on the edge of the Winter River bridge, the same one Adam and Barbara had fallen off of and died their untimely death. She’d stood in her nightgown, the winter wind whipping her hair back and forth and she’d almost said his name three times, _almost._

On her nineteenth birthday she left for New York City and never came back. Now she was twenty-one and had a small semblance of a life. A job at a small photo gallery that she paired with a job at a small coffee shop to make ends meet. She had books, and she had acquaintances at work and she had no one around to judge her for her sadness. 

But she also in a way, had _no one._

Sitting here next to Danny was the first time she’d had company in her apartment in months. She’d had her nights with men and women of all different varieties but she always woke up alone in the end.

She studied Danny again as the dim moonlight cast down on him through the window. He was beautiful. The kind of beautiful that was off-putting and jarring to some. But of course not to her. 

“When?” Danny asked, pulling her from her reverie.

“When I was sixteen. I lived in a haunted house.”  


“Was it scary?”

Lydia shook her head. “It was weird, but not scary.”

Lydia and Danny talked the rest of the night until the moon was high in the sky and the sound of screams had died down to a low hum. They’d shifted closer and closer to each other on the couch as the tea in their mugs was sipped away. Lydia knew if she didn’t kick him out soon then she’d be taking him to bed and that was _not_ an option. She was not fucking a neighbor. 

“It’s late,” she said at last once she’d finished her second cup of tea.

“It is,” he agreed, keeping his eyes on hers.

“I should try and get some sleep.”  
Danny nodded, taking the hint. He set his mug down and headed towards the door, Lydia walking after him. Before she could close the door, he turned around and stepped towards her, taking her face in his hands and kissing her. She froze for a moment in surprise but then leaned in and let his mouth devour hers. When she finally got it together and broke the kiss, they were both breathing heavy. Danny rested his forehead gently against hers, his hands still on her face.

“Can I see you again?”

Lydia nodded against him “Next time the ghosts wake you,” she said softly. “Come find me.”  
Danny smiled, stood up straight and left. Lydia closed the door softly behind him. Took a shaky, stunned breath, then immediately climbed into bed and fell asleep, the screams nothing more than a whisper.

* * *

Lydia couldn’t have been asleep for more than an hour when she heard the hiss of a snake. She sat up in bed, startled, looking all around for the source of the noise. But she was—of course—alone. She shook her head, convinced she was just on edge from the previous events of the night and laid back down. But no sooner had her head hit the pillow did she hear the slithering sound of a serpent sliding along the floor. She sat up again, eyes wide, trying to see into the darkness. Just when she had all about convinced herself again that there was nothing there, she felt something cold coil around her ankle. Before she could scream she was dragged to the floor with a thud, her nightgown hiking up around her hips as a large, looming, horrifying green snake with a face like a nightmare slithering right by her. She opened her mouth to scream that time, but the sound got caught in her throat. But as soon the snake passed her it was suddenly gone and the apartment was silent again. Lydia draped her arms across her eyes and took several deep breaths, fighting back the urge to cry.

“You’re just dreaming,” she whispered to herself.

“Afraid not, babe.”  


Lydia bolted to her feet, the same scream trapped in her throat. Because there, in the corner, cloaked in shadows and starlight, was Beetlejuice. 

“You,” she whispered.

He emerged from the darkness to stand before her in all his macabre glory. “Me,” he taunted, raising a cigarette to his mouth and taking a drag, the ghostly smoke vanishing into the air as he exhaled.

“You’re supposed to be dead.”  


The poltergeist chuckled. “I am dead, darlin, same as I was when we first met.”

“But…the sandworm.”

“Can’t kill what’s already dead, babydoll. All your ghost mommy’s little stunt did was send me to the waiting room. Took a few hours of waiting and a few more weeks of paperwork, but once old Junebug got it all sorted out I was free. And here I am. Gotta say, I knew time moved differently when you’re dead, but boy does it move.” He made no attempt to hide how he looked Lydia up and down, taking in her nightgown-clad body.

Lydia fought the urge to cover herself, but was determined to not appear phased by the ghost’s presence in her apartment in the middle of the night. 

“How long’s it been?” He asked.

“Since when?”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t play dumb.”

“Four years.”  


He whistled, making the last bit of his cigarette disappear with a snap of his fingers. “Ya look good, babe. Don’t get me wrong, ya looked good before, but now,” he whistled yet again, making Lydia cringe. “Now you’re drop dead gorgeous.”  


“How did you even find me?”

“It’s easy to find what’s yours.”  


Lydia stiffened at his words. He noticed. He grinned. Lydia felt a chill run down her spine at the sight. “Beetlejuice?” She said softly, questioningly. 

“Awe, babe,” he said, taking a step closer to her, causing her to freeze yet again. “Normally I’d beg ya to say it two more times, but there’s no need for that now.”  


“Wh…what do you mean?” Lydia began to shiver as the poltergeist’s presence began to make the already cold temperature in the drafty apartment drop even more.

“Well, I needed you to summon me back when I was bound by the Netherworld rules. But now that you’ve freed me I don’t need to wait to hear my name from those pretty little lips.”  


He took yet another step towards her and this time Lydia did take a step back, the backs of her legs banging up against the side of her bed frame. “What’re you talking about?”  


“Told ya, you freed me. Now I’m out and you’re mine.”

Lydia’s eyes narrowed as the ghost continued to approach her. “Why do you keep saying that?”  


“Because it’s true. You married me, so now you’re mine.”  


Lydia felt her heart drop to her stomach, a horrified look spreading across her face. The poltergeist laughed. “Awe no,” he taunted her, “did you think it didn’t go through? Oh, darlin, trust me, it did. That little preacher pronounced us man and wife, you just didn’t hear him over the sound of Bab’s sandworm stunt.” He closed out more of the distance between them so now only a few feet separated the ghost and the girl. “But we said our ‘I dos’ and Juno sorted out the paperwork, and now here we are—the happy couple.”  
Lydia bolted towards the door, but he was on her in and instant, hands wrapping around her waist, dragging her back. She opened her mouth yet again to scream, but he clamped a hand over her just like he’d done on their supposedly very legally binding wedding day. 

He kept dragging her back, Lydia reached out and wrapped her hands around one of the beams that were scattered across her open floor plan attic apartment, and held on as tightly as she could. Beetlejuice could’ve easily peeled her hands away and dragged her to the bed. But he didn’t want her like this. As much as he loved the taste of fear and the feeling of a fight, what had drawn him to Lydia in the first place was the way she _wasn’t_ afraid of him. A littleroughhousing in the bedroom was never a bad thing, and he may have been a pervert with less than tasteful gropes and grabs here and there, but he wasn’t a rapist, and as stunning and devastatingly gorgeous he thought his little breather wife was, he wasn’t about to force her into bed with him. No, he was confident he could convince her to want it. He would _make_ her want it.

He loosed his hold on her, _slightly,_ and let her rest back on her feet. Lydia pressed her head to the wooden beam, trying to steady her breathing with his hand still over her mouth and his arm still wrapped tightly around her waist.

“Don’t be like that, babe.”

She tried to speak against his hand but of course the sound came out muffled. He chuckled lightly as he removed his hand.

“What was that, darlin?”  


“Don’t call me babe.”

“Alright, baby.”

“Not that either,” she spat.

He laughed louder. “Dollface? Babydoll? Sweetheart?”  


Lydia tried to wriggle out of his grip which only caused him to retighten his hold and for her to practically growl in frustration. 

“So, babe it is,” he said with a triumphant smirk she couldn’t see. “Come on,” he said again, digging his fingers into her stomach deep enough to make her gasp softly. “It ain’t so bad.”  


“What? Being married to you? Yes it is.”  


“How would you know? We haven’t seen each other in years.”

“The blackmail marriage left a bad taste in my mouth.”  


“You agreed to it, darlin.”  


“You were gonna let Barbara and Adam die!”  


“Ah, well.” He didn’t bother arguing with her, he simply used the hand that was no longer covering her mouth to run his fingers through her hair. Lydia loathed how soothing his gentle touch felt.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, her fingers digging into the wood. “You’re not gonna find any court that will recognize a marriage between a dead guy and a girl, that was overseen by a random alien-creature from hell.”  


He laughed again and leaned down to nuzzle his face into Lydia’s neck, sending another chill down her spine. “It ain’t binding by breather laws, you’re right. But it’s binding by Netherworld ones.”  


“And what does that mean?”

“Means wherever you go I can go too. No hiding from your husband, baby. Like I said, you’re _mine.”  
_

“Fuck off, Beetlejuice. I don’t belong to anybody.”  


“Ah, it means that too. No more being able to wish me away with a chant of my name. Now if you’re _really_ missing me and need me to come running, you can say it three times to call me. Just like you almost did all those other times before. And I would’ve come, baby, trust me. But Netherworld paperwork is hell.”

Lydia froze under his touch and again he laughed that condescending laugh, this time directly in her ear. “Ya think I didn’t hear you all those nights you called out for me? Think I wouldn’t know the sound of your voice anywhere? Doesn’t matter how far away you are, darlin, I’ll always be able to find you.”  
Lydia found his words both horrifying and oddly comforting. 

“Come on, babe, let go of the beam and come to bed.”  


“I am _not_ going to bed with you.”  
Beetlejuice smoothed down her hair again and Lydia bit her lips to keep herself from sighing from his touch.

“And why not? I ain’t gonna hurt ya.”  


Lydia said nothing. She was not in the right state of mind to unpack all the conflicting thoughts, and fantasies, and nightmares she’d had when picturing a moment like this over the past four years.

“I’m tired,” is what she settled on.

“Then let’s go to sleep.”  


“Do the dead even need to sleep?”

“No, but we can.”  


“I don’t trust you,” she said.

He nuzzled into her neck again, this time, gently pressing his lips to her bare skin. She dug her nails into the wooden beam again, biting her lip once more to keep from whimpering.

“Why not, baby?” He whispered against her skin as he moved his mouth to her neck and gently nipped at her. 

This time she was unable to hide a small hiss of unwilling pleasure. She felt him smile against her skin and she hated herself for letting him have any satisfaction from her. 

“I ain’t ever lied to you and I ain’t lying now. I’m not gonna hurt you. And even if I did,” he chuckled again, “the pain would be sweet.”  


“Fuck you,” Lydia said through gritted teeth as he dragged his nose up the length of her jaw to rest his mouth right next to her ear. He blew cold air against her and she couldn’t help but quiver against him, his arm tightened around her waist in response.

“Come to bed, _wife,”_ he whispered.

Lydia pressed her head against the beam again, not trusting herself to say anything.

“Aren’t you lonely, Lydia?”

The sound of her actual name in his mouth as opposed to the array of ridiculous pet names, startled her. It sounded so different. It _felt_ so different. More… _honest._ She wasn’t sure he’d ever actually addressed her by her actual name before. It was more jarring than the sound of screaming ghosts in her walls and random punk boys on her doorstep demanding tea and late night talks.

“This has been a weird night,” she said.

He laughed again, but this time more from genuine amusement than arrogance. 

“Please, go away,” she said softly, hoping against all hope that it would achieve anything.

To her surprise, the ghost sighed and straightened up, releasing his hold on her. She spun around to face him, expecting a trick, but there was none. He was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.”
> 
> -Jane Eyre

Lydia tried to find Danny’s apartment, realizing she hadn’t asked for the number, but after aimlessly roaming the halls the following morning, she realized it was hopeless. When the wailing in the walls woke her the next night, she bundled up in a large sweater and made two cups of tea. She say down and waited for the knock on her door. She opened it to see an anxious and eager looking Danny. She held out a mug to him, he smiled, taking it and following her inside. 

“You knew I’d come?” He asked as he settled down on the couch next to her.

“No, but I suspected it. I tried to find you this morning but I realized I don’t know what apartment you’re in.”  


He sipped his tea. “666.”  


Lydia laughed. “That’s fitting.”

“Isn’t it?” He said with a smile as he let his free hand land gently on her knee and begin to trace patterns across her bare skin, sending electrifying chills throughout her body.

The two talked until the stars were nearly out and their mugs were once again empty and then Lydia decided to be bold. Perhaps it was just her loneliness, perhaps it was her encounter with her own personal ghost last night, or perhaps it was a mixture of both.

She shifted across the couch, crawling into Danny’s lap and pressing her mouth to his. She tasted the tea on his tongue mixed with mint and tobacco. He moved his hands up and down her back, slipping beneath her sweater so that his cool fingers pressed against her back where her nightgown dipped low. Lydia was almost completely lost in his touch when she heard the sound of a snake. 

She pulled away quickly, her eyes darting all across the attic in search of the source of the sound.

“Lydia?” He asked uncertainly.

She looked down at him. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “The ghosts are getting to me.” Danny smiled, resting his hands on her hips. “It’s understandable.”

“I think I’m gonna go to bed,” she said. “Get some rest”  


“Of course,” he said. 

Lydia locked the door behind him and listened to his footsteps fading down the hall. As soon as the room had fallen back into silence she heard the slithering of a snake. 

“You fucking bastard,” she muttered under her breath.

As soon as the words left her lips she saw two arms come down on either side of her, caging her in, and she felt the weight of a heavy body press against her.

“Is that anyway to speak to your husband?”

“Get off me.”

“No,” he said with a smile as he dipped his head down and kissed her neck. 

Lydia tried to move away, but he planted his hands on top of hers, holding her in place as he continued his assault on her neck. He bit her neck hard enough to bruise and Lydia couldn’t help but whimper from the pain. “Stop it,” she whispered.

“Awe, you’re no fun, babe,” he said, gently kissing her freshly purpling skin. “Don’t tell me you’re so dull as to not like a little bit of pain with your pleasure.”  


“I get no pleasure from your touch, Beetlejuice.”  
He dropped one of his hands from hers and quickly wrapped it around her throat, pulling her back against him. She gasped softly from the unexpected pressure. She reached her free hand up to wrap around his arm that held her against him.

“Ah, see,” he whispered in her ear. “I can hear your heart racing. You like a little roughness, don’t ya babe?”

“Let go.”

He laughed his infuriating laugh and released her, taking a few steps back. Lydia spun around, her hand absentmindedly touching her throat. He kept his vicious green eyes on her and Lydia just stared at him, open-mouthed and doe-eyed with no idea what to say. 

“Have I left you speechless, darlin?”

She dropped her hand from her throat and did her best to stand up straight. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”

He shrugged. “I don’t want to.”  


“Why?” He opened his mouth to answer but she cut him off. “Don’t say it’s because I’m _yours,_ or your wife or whatever. If you’re free then can’t you go wherever you want? Do whatever you want? Or does the paperwork dictate you have to be with me?”

“It doesn’t,” he said.

“Then _why_ are you here?”

He took a step towards her and she instinctively stepped back until she was pressed against the door. He ignored her unease and closed out the space between them. He reached up and cupped a hand around the back of her neck, forcing her to keep her eyes locked on his. “Because I want to be.”

Lydia shook her head in disbelief. “What a ridiculous thing to say.”  


“It really isn’t.”

“Why? Why do you want to be here?”

“Because I like you.” 

At that Lydia laughed. A loud, incredulous laugh. “No you don’t.”  


He dug his fingers in to her neck, causing her to flinch. “I _do.”_

“Why?”

“You keep using that word.”

“Because I want to know.”

He sighed again. “Cause you seem like somebody I can relate to.”

“How so?” Lydia asked, a bit curious to know his answer.

“You’re sad, lonely, and angry. All things I know quite a bit about.”  
Lydia said nothing to that. She had no logical or eloquent response to a demented ghost reading her so well. The two stood in silence for a few moments, his chilly hand still pressed against her neck, the wind whistling by the windows and the sound of screams dulled in the walls.

“Are we really married?” She asked softly.

He nodded but didn’t say anything. 

“And you really want to be here?”

This time he ducked his head down so that the two of them were at eye level. 

“Yes,” he said firmly. “I want to be here.”  
“What if I don’t want you here?” She asked, doing her best to keep her voice from shaking.

“Are you saying you’d rather be alone?”

Lydia bit her lip to keep from saying something she’d regret. She _didn’t_ want to be alone. But she had Danny now, a nice, normal _living_ person to spend her nights with. She didn’t need a ghost husband haunting her in order to find some solace in company outside of her own thoughts. She wanted to tell Beetlejuice all of this. She _should_ tell him all of this.

“No,” she whispered instead. “I don’t want to be alone.”  


Beetlejuice smiled. “Then come to bed.”

“I’m not having sex with you.”  


“Alright.”  


“Alright?” She asked, surprised.

“Yes,” he nodded. “Alright. We won’t have sex. But you’re tired and I’m not going anywhere, so let’s go to bed.”  


For one, embarrassingly long moment, Lydia hesitated. But finally she shook her head.

“No.”

Beetlejuice groaned and stepped back from her, releasing his grip on her neck. “Come on, babe.”  
“I’m not getting into bed with you,” she insisted. “Jesus Christ I hardly even know you. Before you broke in here the other night we’d talked like what? Twice?”

“And what lovely conversations they were. And darlin I didn’t break in here, I’m a ghost.”  


“You’re a creep.”  


He smirked. “And you’re a brat.”  


“Resenting being blackmailed into marrying a perverted poltergeist does not a brat make.”

Beetlejuice laughed again. “Come on, babe, let me stay.”

“Aren’t you going to stay whether I want you to or not?”

“Give me a chance and you’ll want me to.”

“You say the stupidest things.”  


Beetlejuice was tickled by her reactions and retorts. In all his years of haunting he’d never met anyone who wasn’t afraid of him. As confident as the Maitlands had tried to seem they _were_ truly terrified of him. But not little miss Lydia Deetz with her funeral attire and sad eyes. Here she stood before him, telling him off. He marveled at how brazen she was. Did she not realize that he could kill her in just a second if he wanted to? He loved bold women, but she was another breed entirely.

“I mean it,” he said. “Ya say we barely know each other? Then let’s get to know each other.” He disappeared and then reappeared on the other side of the room on her couch. He patted the seat beside him. “Come on, darling _wife.”_

Lydia glared at him but gave up and shuffled over to him. She realized there was no getting rid of him and if this was the way to keep him from putting his hands on her then so be it. 

“Alright, babe whatya wanna know?”

“What’s the difference between a poltergeist and a ghost?”  


“Are ya kidding? Did ya see your precious Maitlands turning into snakes?”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “You don’t get to act superior to other ghosts just because you can turn into a giant carnival game.”  
He laughed again, still in awe of her confidence. When he’d come the other night she’d seemed so afraid, running from him. And in truth she had been afraid, if only for a second. But more than that she was angry. Angry that after spending years trying to forget him, he’d come crashing back into her life demanding more from her than anyone had any right to. 

And what angered her even more was the fact that she’d imagined the moment he’d come back _many_ times. She’d spent more nights than she cared to admit laying in be wondering if wanting to marry her was just about getting out or if he’d seen something in her. If there was some reason that someone finally saw her.

_It’s because you could see him,_ a voice in her head always reminded her. She didn’t know if that thought meant she was special to him or if he was just using her. She had come to convince herself it was the latter. But his words _I want to be here,_ hit just a little too hard.

“I meant how do you get to be a poltergeist?” She asked.

He conjured a lit cigarette and placed it between his teeth. 

“Ya lie and cheat and con the higher ups until ya get all the power in the world.”  


“You don’t have all the power in the world, you need someone to say your name to be able to do anything.”

He leaned in, leering at her as he inhaled and exhaled cigarette smoke in her face. 

“ _Needed,_ babygirl. Past tense. The Juice is loose now.”

“Did you just refer to yourself as _the juice?”  
_

He leaned back and took another drag. “Ah please, babe, you love it.”

“I don’t love anything about you, _babe.”  
_ Beetlejuice’s eyes snapped over to her. He took in the smirk she was giving him, it screamed _two can play at this._ And he was suddenly more enraptured by her spunk than he had been up until this moment. _Who the hell is this girl?  
_

“Alright, enough asking me, lemme ask you something.”

“I asked one question.”

“Jeez, babe, ever played twenty questions before? We gotta take turns.”

Lydia groaned and slumped back against the couch and gestured for him to continue.

“Why’d ya wanna kill yourself?”  


“Pass.”

“Ah, ah, no passing.”

Lydia tilted her head back and groaned louder for dramatic affect. 

“I was sad.”  


Beetlejuice shook his head. “You suck at this game.”

Lydia looked over at him. “And you suck at everything.”

“Awe, babe, don’t threaten me with a good time.”  


Lydia picked up one of the couch pillows and threw it at him. It smacked him in the face and fell down to the floor.

Beetlejuice just sat there stunned. This little goth girl had just _thrown a fucking pillow_ at the ghost with the most.

“Ya trying to get a rise out of me, darlin?”

Lydia noticed his green eyes get a little more sinister and she instinctively shifted away.

“Awe, don’t tell me the big bad Lydia Deetz is scared of a little ghost?”  


Lydia hesitated, holding his gaze and willing herself to stay strong and not break the stare. She needed to prove to him that he didn’t scare her. That he didn’t have any power over her. 

“My turn.” Beetlejuice again was surprised by her response. “How’d you die?”

He smirked. “Pass.”  


“You just said there’s no passing!”  


He leaned back again, folding his hands behind his head. “I made the game, babe, I get to make the rules.”  


“You did not invent twenty questions.”

“Well if you don’t wanna play anymore.”

“I didn’t wanna play in the first place!”  


The ghost laughed again. “So, ya tired enough now to go to bed, my sweet?”  


“Stop trying to get me to take you to bed.”  


The ghost shot her a devilish grin. “Never.” Then he vanished into thin air.

* * *

_Married,_ she thought. She knew it didn’t mean the same thing as marrying a living person. All it had done was free him of his name-chanting punishment that had kept his powers limited. But it had also bound him to her. There was no escaping him now.

_Stop lying to yourself,_ a voice inside her mind chided her. _You don’t want to escape him. You waited four years wishing he’d come back. He’s the only person who could ever understand you._

“Shut up,” Lydia muttered to herself.

She got dressed and headed to work.

Six hours later, cloaked in the scent of coffee, she retreated back to her apartment to find Danny sitting on the front steps outside. He smiled as she approached.

“Hey there.”  


She smiled back. “Hey. What’re you doing out here?”

“Waiting for you.” Lydia felt a warmth in her chest hearing those three words. “Wanna go ghost hunting?”  


“Why would we wanna hunt the ghosts?”

“So they shut up and we can get some sleep.” Lydia looked horrified and Danny just laughed. He jumped to his feet and came over and took her hands in his. “Relax, I’m kidding. I figured if we can hear them, and you can see them, then maybe we could help put them to rest.”

“You think they want to be put to rest?”

“They’re screaming.”  


“So you think they’re in pain? Can ghosts feel pain?” But Lydia realized that she already knew the answer. She thought back to the sight of the Maitlands crumbling into nothingness right before her eyes. It was their pain that had lead to the tulle wedding dress and the misspoken vows and the ghostly striped mess of a man haunting her nights. 

“Okay,” she said. “Yeah. Let’s try. Where do we start?”

“In the walls.”

“We’re not rats,” Lydia said, playfully squeezing his hands. “We can’t get into the walls.”

“Where there’s a will there’s a way, baby.”

A few minutes later the two were standing on the roof of the apartment building above a small hatch that lead to the crawl space between the walls of the apartment. 

“Ready?” He asked.

Lydia looked down into the cobwebbed darkness then back at the cliche beside her. She laughed at the absurdity of it all. “Sure.”

Without waiting she climbed down, landing with a soft thunk on the rickety floor and she hoped it would hold. Danny plopped down shortly after and the two took a moment to get their bearing amidst the shadows and cobwebs.

“So you’ve seen ghosts before,” he said, “is it like The Haunted Mansion?”

“The ride at Disneyland? No. They just look like people. Sometimes they wear sheets.”

“Sheets?”  


“It’s a long story.”

Danny chuckled and then took her hand and began to lead her through the weaving walkways of the crawl space. After a few paces it felt like the space was slowly getting darker and darker until Lydia could barely see at all. There was suddenly a chilling gust of wind and the feeling of Danny’s hand in hers was gone. She came to a halt.

“Danny?” She called out uncertainly. 

The hiss of a snake was all she heard in return. She whipped around, trying to find the direction it came from but the darkness had completely cloaked her. She was drowning in it.

“Stop it,” she said, her voice coming out softer than she intended. “I know it’s you.”

“Ya recognize my voice anywhere, huh, babe?” Beetlejuice whispered in her ear.

Lydia turned around but there was no one there. She reached her hands out into the darkness but was met with nothing but air. And then she heard the screaming. The ghosts were near.

“Beetlejuice,” she said again, a little more desperately this time. “Stop it. I’m serious.”

“How’d ya know I’m the one doing it, darlin? There’s many spooks in these walls.”

Lydia swung her arm out to try and smack him, half expecting to find nothing but air again, but this time an icy hand clamped down on her wrist with an ironclad grip. The Ghost with the Most tugged her forward until she was flush against his chest, the breath knocked out of her. He leered down at her with his piercing green eyes that seemed to glow in the inky darkness that surrounded them.

“What’s wrong, baby? Did I scare ya?”  


“What the fuck is your problem?”

“Can’t a guy visit his wife?”

“I’m not your wife.”  


“Stop trying to deny it, darlin.” 

Lydia tried to pull against his grip but he wouldn’t relent. She raised her other hand up to try and push against his chest but he grabbed that wrist too and spun them around so that she was pinned to the wall. 

“Why’re you here?” She asked.

“I don’t like seeing my wife messin around with other guys.”  


“First, you don’t get a say in who I _mess around_ with. Netherworld married is not real-world married. And second, we weren’t _messing around,_ we’re ghost hunting.”  
He leaned in closer to her so that his lips were only a small breadth apart from hers. 

“Oh, is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Lydia groaned and leaned her head back against the wall. “You’re insufferable.”  


He smirked. “You’ll learn to suffer through it, baby.”  


“Why stick around and bother me if you know I’m never going to like you?”  


“Ya liked me when we met.”

Lydia glared at him. “I did not.”  


He leaned forward further and whispered in her ear. “Did to.”  


“Oh my god you act like such a child.”  


“So do you,” he taunted. “Ghost hunting? Really?”  


“You don’t get to stand before me as a literal ghost and act like ghost hunting is a juvenile past time.”  


Beetlejuice stood up straight again, his grip on her wrists loosening just the tiniest bit.

“It ain’t but why’re you doing it? Think you’re gonna get new ghost buddies like the Maitlands? Whatya need ghost buddies for anyway when you got me?”

“I don’t _have_ you.”  


“Sure you do. I’m here ain’t I?”

“You’re just here to try and pressure me into fucking you.”  


Beetlejuice gasped dramatically. “Miss Deetz, such language.” Lydia rolled her eyes and Beetlejuice laughed. “Seriously though,” he said, his taunting tone gone. “I ain’t sticking around just to try and get ya to fuck me.”  


“You’re…you’re not?”  


“Well don’t get me wrong, you’re a babe, I’d love to fuck ya all night until you’re screaming my name.” He winked and Lydia rolled her eyes again and again he laughed. “But no it ain’t just that. I told ya, I like being around ya. Wanna get to know ya. And I can tell you wanna get to know me.” Lydia narrowed her eyes at him. “Come on, doll, ya trying to tell me that ya ain’t the least bit curious about the ghost with the most?”  


“Fine,” Lydia groaned. “I’m a _little_ curious.”

He grinned and ducked down to kiss her cheek. “See, was that so terrible?”  


“Yes.”  


Again he laughed. “I’ll see ya tonight, darlin.” And then he was gone along with the icy wind and the darkness and in his place was Danny’s voice.

“Lydia?” 

“Over here!”  


Danny rounded a corner and found her. “Oh thank god,” he said. “I don’t know how we got separated.”  


“Me either,” Lydia lied. “But we’re together now.”  


Danny smiled. “And I come bearing good news.”

“What’s that?”  


“I found the ghosts.”

What Danny had found were _not_ the ghosts, they were paintings. Lydia stood there in the dark, squinting at the them with what little daylight was left to creep through the cracks in the wall. They all looked to be of the same woman, in a long bluish gown, her face in different states of despair.

“Danny, I don’t know how to explain to you that paintings aren’t ghosts.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “It’s paintings _of_ the ghosts.”  


“They’re all of the same woman.”  


He tilted his head to the side. “Huh, ya think so?”  


Lydia nodded.

“Well, she could be the ghost.”  


“But who painted her? Herself?”

“How else did these paintings get here?” He asked. “We’re literally in the walls.”  
Lydia looked to him for a moment then back to the wall. He had a point. Crawl spaces were not usually seen as prime real estate for aspiring painters. 

“Do you think the ghost wanted us to find this?”

“Maybe.” Danny stepped closer and gently ran a hand against the painting as if it could tell him its secrets through touch. 

* * *

Lydia closed the door to her apartment behind her and clicked the lock into place.

“I know you’re here,” she called out. She turned around to see Beetlejuice sitting in her armchair across from the sofa, a book in his hand.

“Honey, you're home.”  


Lydia rolled her eyes and dropped her backpack to the floor. She kicked off her boots and shuffled into the kitchen and Beetlejuice followed, sitting on the counter in front of her as she went about making herself a cup of hot chocolate. Beetlejuice said nothing, just watched her intently. Without giving herself enough time to second guess her decision, she took out a second mug and poured hot chocolate into it, and handed it to the poltergeist. He took it tentatively, surprised by the simple act. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had done something so simple, yet so kind for him.

“Shut up,” Lydia said, noticing the look on his face.

“I said nothing.”  


Lydia narrowed her eyes at him. “Can you even drink that if you’re dead?”

Without saying another word Beetlejuice downed half the drink in one go. Lydia sighed and moved over to the sofa, the ghoul close behind her.

Lydia sipped from her mug and let her head fall back against the couch. “Are we going to discuss earlier?”

“What would you like to discuss?”  


Lydia rolled her head to the side to look at Beetlejuice. He was grinning devilishly at her. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“You said you wanna get to know me.”

The Ghost with the Most nodded. “I do.”  


“I don’t understand.” Beetlejuice sighed dramatically but Lydia pushed on. “You’re this all powerful otherworldly being. You’ve existed for centuries, surely you’ve seen more than I have, _been_ with more people than I have,” at that Beetlejuice waggled his eyebrows at her, Lydia ignored him “so why, if you don’t have to, do you want to spend your time with me?”  


“That’s your big question?” He asked. Lydia nodded. “Jeez, babe, I thought it was obvious.”  


“Well call me stupid because it’s not.”  


“You’re not stupid.”  


“How do you know? You haven’t gotten to know me yet?”

Beetlejuice opened his mouth to respond and caught the smirk she shot him over the rim of her mug as she raised it to her lips. He chuckled, shaking his head.

“Yer right,” he said, “I have been around for centuries. Seen my fair share of the world of the living and the dead. Fucked my fair share of both too.” Lydia rolled her eyes again. Beetlejuice reached out and poked her knee. “But I don’t wanna be alone.”  
Lydia lowered her mug back down slowly. “What?”  


“Ya heard me. I don’t wanna be alone. Seeing as I don’t know any other breathers I came to you. Well I know your rents but you seem like a lot more fun.”

“But you’re visible now. Powerful. Can’t you just…meet someone?”  


Beetlejuice chuckled lowly, his hand still resting against her knee. 

“Sure I could. But like I said, I already know you. Life is lonely.”

“You’re dead.”  


“Death is lonelier.”

“Beetlejuice.”  


“Hmm?” Lydia noticed he had begun to gently move his thumb back and forth across her knee. Even with the fabric of her tights between them, she still felt small jolts of electricity from his touch. 

“You met me _once_ when I was seventeen and suicidal.”

“I know,” he said evenly, his thumb still grazing her knee. Lydia told herself she should move her knee. Should shove his hand away. She did neither.

She stared into the poltergeist’s green eyes and he stared right back into her brown ones. Several moments of silence passed between the ghost and the girl before Lydia finally broke it. 

“I’m going to take a nap,” she said, standing up and walking towards the kitchenette to put her mug in the sink.

“It’s seven p.m.” Beetlejuice called out.

“I know.”  


“If you nap now you’ll be up all night.”

Lydia rinsed out her mug and walked over to her bed on the far side of the room. “Well then that’s great news for you, you’ll have someone to annoy all night. So let me sleep without your stupid snake antics for a few hours and then you can blither on about whatever you want until the sun comes up.”  
Beetlejuice threw his head back and laughed but didn’t argue anymore. Lydia pulled back the blankets of her bed and climbed in. Still in her clothes and makeup but too tired to care. She peered across the room to spy Beetlejuice flipping through the pages of the book he’d clearly already read.

“You can read another one,” she mumbled against her pillow. 

She expected him to make a joke, but all he did was look over at her, a look of genuine gratitude on his face. 

“Yeah?”

Lydia nodded against her pillow. “Yes. You can read them all.”

Beetlejuice smiled at her, then she rolled over and went to sleep.

* * *

Lydia woke hours later to starlight streaming through her windows and the smell of coffee brewing. She sat up in bed and her memories came washing back over her.

_Beetlejuice._

She practically jumped out of bed, prepared to find him there next to her, but she was alone. She turned to look across the room and saw that he was in the same armchair he’d been sitting in when she’d gotten home from work earlier. He was sipping from a mug and reading her copy of _Phantom of the Opera._

“Hey,” she said.

He looked up at her. “Evenin, babe.” 

“You didn’t…” she glanced back at her bed then back at him. “You didn’t try to get into bed with me.”

Beetlejuice put his mug and book down on the coffee table before straightening back up to look her again. He gave her a smile that filled her with unease.

“Did you want me to?”  


“No, I just thought…”  


“That I would anyway.”  


Lydia nodded. In the blink of an eye the poltergeist was gone from the chair and instead stood right in front of her, mere inches between them. He towered over her, making her unsteady from the surprise of his close proximity. She stumbled back a few steps but he reached out and caught hold of her arms.

“I told ya earlier, babe, it ain’t like that.”  


“It’s not?” Lydia said, her voice coming out softer than she wanted it to.

“No,” he said, his voice becoming serious. “It’s not.”

“I was just worried because…the other night…and…” she hated herself for suddenly being too nervous to string words together properly when only hours earlier she’d been holding her own against him.

“Ya think a couple kisses means I’m gonna…” Beetlejuice studied her eyes and realized that she very much _did_ think that. “Jeez, babe. No. I figured you knew that since you, ya know, got into bed in front of me.”  


“Well, you won’t leave.”

Beetlejuice reached up and took her chin in his hand, his cool touch startling her. “Like I told ya earlier, yer a babe, I’d love to fuck you. But I ain’t gonna get in bed with you unless you want me to.”  


“What if I never want you to?”  
Beetlejuice smirked, and without warning leaned down and kissed her forehead. Lydia was stunned from the odd show of affection.

“We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we? Now,” he turned and headed for the kitchen, “I made coffee.”

Lydia glanced at the clock. “It’s 11pm.”  


Beetlejuice groaned dramatically. “Don’t act like you have some precious sleep schedule, you just took a four hour nap in the middle of the night.”

Lydia glared at him, but relented and came in to take the mug he was offering her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Most of all, I hate you because I think of you. Often. It's disgusting, and I can't stop.”
> 
> -The Cruel Prince

It was raining when Danny came into the coffee shop to see Lydia. She looked up from her own cup of coffee, sweat on her brow from the hectic rush, coffee grinds under her nails. 

“Hey, beautiful,” he said as he sauntered up to the counter.

“Hi,” Lydia said, grinning. She realized how around him she turned into a blushing schoolgirl, it was so different from how she behaved around Beetlejuice. She told herself it was because she didn’t like Beetlejuice in any romantic sort of way but the voice in her head hissed _liar_ over and over again. She did her best to drown it out with distractions.

And Danny was the perfect one.

“How’re you?” He asked.

“Tired.” 

He smirked.

“Can I buy you a cup of coffee.”

“I get free coffee, silly.”  


“Ah well, I’ll buy two then and pretend one’s for you.”  


Lydia shook her head, smiling, and rung him up for two coffees. As he took them he didn’t turn to leave, rather just stood there and kept his eyes on Lydia.

“Let me take you out this weekend.”

“Oh.”

“What?” He laughed lightly. “Only down to hang out with me if it’s ghost hunting?”

“No,” Lydia said, when in actuality what he said was somewhat true. She liked Danny, but her mind hadn’t managed to think of him outside of nighttime hours spent on her couch or amongst the ghosts. But surely going out with a cliche was better than spending the night with an obsessive ghost.

“Okay,” she said. “Where?”

“There’s a party happening in an artists’ loft downtown.”  


“A party?” Lydia detested parties.

“Awe, don’t worry, it’s not like a college kegger. It’s all artist types hanging around sipping wine and vibing.”

Lydia laughed. “Did you just say _vibing?”_

Danny smirked at her. “Ya gonna come or not?”  


“Sure.”  


“Wonderful. I’ll pick you up at eight Friday night.” And with that he turned and left. The whole interaction had been so swift that Lydia didn’t even notice that he wasn’t wet from the rain.

* * *

The woman in the walls found the Ghost with the Most sitting on the roof smoking a cigarette at sunset. He didn’t hear her approach, but he knew she was there.

“Go away.”  


“She’s going to find out,” the woman said.

Beetlejuice begrudgingly turned to face her. She looked even more ghastly than he remembered. 

“You’re a real buzzkill, ya know that?”

The woman remained unfazed by his words. 

“When do you plan on telling her?”  


“Never.”  


“She will discover the truth. She’s smarter than the rest.”

“Don’t say it like that,” Beetlejuice grumbled, taking another drag of his cigarette, blowing the smoke in the woman’s face, but she was not as corporeal as the poltergeist. The smoke passed right through her. 

“There ain’t any _rest._ Lydia is different and I know you can see that.”  


“Maybe so. But she won’t see that when she learns of them.”  


“Once again, she won’t learn about anything because I ain’t gonna tell her and neither are you. If you _were,_ you would’ve let those little ghost hunters find ya already.”  


“They will find me when the time is right.”

Beetlejuice rolled his eyes. “What’re ya? A fucking fortune cookie? Get outta my sight.” Beetlejuice set his eyes back on the sunset, but of course the woman did not leave.

“Do you truly believe she will fall in love with you?”

“No.”  


The woman was admittedly surprised. Beetlejuice looked at her again, smirking—mollified by the reaction he’d gotten out of her.

“What’s the matter, baby? Did ya think I was delusional?”

“No, I assumed you were optimistic.”  


“Then you truly don’t know me at all. A shame really when you used to pride yourself on it.”

“I never claimed to know you, Lawrence.”  


Beetlejuice glowered at her. “Don’t call me that.”  


The woman smiled condescendingly. “Would you react in such a way if your little gothic beauty called you that?”  
Beetlejuice stood up and marched over to the specter. “She ain’t ever gonna call me that, because like the rest of your nonsense declarations, she ain’t ever gonna know. She doesn’t need to. She’s knows the Ghost with the Most; she don’t need to know anything more.”  


“And what will you do when she tires of your facade? Your posturing? What will you do when that inquisitive young woman requires more answers than you are willing to give?” 

Beetlejuice was quiet. Finally at a loss. He searched for a sarcastic response, but found he was all out. She’d sucked him dry. 

“You say you don’t believe she will fall in love with you, but I can see in your eyes how desperately you wish that she would. And I have to wonder why. You barely know her.”  


“I don’t need years to know what I feel.”

The woman actually laughed. The sound was disturbing.

“Since when can you feel Lawrence Orion?” She took a step towards him, closing out the small bit of space left between them. “Did you feel when you slaughtered innocents under the guise of a profession? Did you feel when you tormented her family? Did you feel when you tormented her?”

“I never tormented Lydia.”  


“I doubt she would agree.”

“Be quiet,” he snarled.

But the woman was relentless.

“She didn’t invite you into her home. You came and stayed even though you are not wanted. She didn’t summon you when you begged her all those years ago.”

“She summoned me.”

“Only when she was desperate to save those that she truly loved. And you tricked her into something regrettable.”

“I didn’t trick her you stupid bitch. Lydia agreed, _willingly.”  
_

“She was barely eighteen and her friends were dying. You were her only hope and you truly believe she actually _wanted_ to be with you? You really think a beautiful woman like her could ever love a repulsive creature like you?”  
Beetlejuice threw his head back and laughed. 

“You don’t get it do ya, darlin? That girl read The Handbook cover to cover. She knew it better than any spirit. She could’ve saved them all on her own and she _knew_ that. But she chose me. She will _always_ choose me.”  
The woman smiled a sickly sweet smile that Beetlejuice knew would haunt him. 

“You can tell yourself that lie all you want, Lawrence Orion. But the truth always finds a way to come out. She will learn every single dirty secret you fight so hard to conceal.  And when she does she will use what she learned in that Handbook to banish you forever. Your marriage will mean nothing. The word _wife_ will lose all meaning and Lydia Deetz will become yet another thing that you lost.”

* * *

“Beetlejuice?” Lydia called out as she walked through her front door. But for once it was quiet. The poltergeist was nowhere to be found.

Lydia frowned. She didn’t dare admit to herself that she was disappointed with the silence. He’d been haunting her for weeks now and she’d become accustomed to coming home to him. It admittedly felt nice to not be so alone. 

She pushed those feelings away and went about making dinner and then reading a book and then giving up on her attempts to distract herself.

Her mind began to reel as she stared out at the night sky, wondering why he’d left her. She’d told him time and time again that she didn’t want him there. But like a character in a song, she’d really wanted him to fight to stay. To come back when she pushed him away. She wanted someone to want her. 

_Do you want him?_ The voice in her head asked. _No._ Lydia insisted. _But I don’t want to be alone._

_Then go find Danny._

Lydia knew that was the logical thing to do. She could go find Danny’s devil-numbered apartment and curb her loneliness in his embrace. But Danny still had so much of her to learn, and while Beetlejuice was not the expert on her he liked to believe he was, he still knew her better than her cliche downstairs. 

She wondered if knowing her was what had driven him away. 

Was her darkness too much for even a ghost to bear?  


Was it too much for _her_ to bear?

_You don’t have to bear it,_ the voice said. 

Lydia shook her head. _No._

_It will be quick,_ the voice insisted. _Most people pass out from fear on the way down. You won’t even feel the ground when you hit. You can go. You can follow The Maitlands._

_The Maitlands are at home in Winter River,_ Lydia insisted.

_They would go to The Netherworld if you were there._

Lydia felt tears prick her eyes. She tried to picture a stop sign, anything to keep these painful intrusive thoughts at bay. But they were vicious. They’d gotten their claws in her and would not let her go.

_It is such a short walk to the stairs. It is such an easy thing to let go. If not for The Maitlands then do it for your mother._

Lydia gasped softly. The words were knives in her heart.

_She’s waiting for you._

_No,_ Lydia insisted. _She wants me to live._

_No one wants you to live. Even the perverted poltergeist left you._

“Shut up!” Lydia screamed to the empty room. 

And then she gasped, feeling as if she could not get enough air.

And then she left her apartment and headed for the roof.

* * *

Lydia stood barefoot on the edge of the old apartment building’s roof. It was such a long way down. Maybe the voice was right and she’d pass out before she hit the ground. Maybe The Maitlands _would_ join her. Maybe her mother _was_ waiting. Maybe this incessant ache could finally cease. Maybe she could truly rest in peace. Twenty-one years was more than enough, wasn’t it? Did she really need more? How much longer could the world expect her to endure it? Decades and decades more? No. That was unthinkable. 

_No one wants you to live,_ the voice repeated. 

Lydia lifted her foot, and leaned forward, ready to let go when a pair of hands wrapped around her waist and pulled her back.

Lydia cried out as she stumbled backwards, falling off the ledge, back onto the roof and into someone’s arms. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Beetlejuice growled in her ear.

Lydia looked over her shoulder, up at the ghost. He saw that she was crying. His arms tightened around her. He’d met this girl at her darkest moment, but that moment was sunny compared to what he was looking at now. Lydia’s eyes were sorrow incarnate. All the pain of the world was swimming in them. He didn’t know what to do.

“Lydia,” he said, wishing he had the words to comfort her. “Don’t…” he inhaled a breath his dead body didn’t need as he struggled to find the right thing to say. “Don’t go.”

Lydia wriggled out of his arms and turned around to face him head on.

“You came back.”  


“Darlin, I never left.”  


“I came back and you weren’t home. You were just gone.”  


Beetlejuice opened his mouth to speak but found that once again he was at a loss for words. She said he wasn’t home. Implying that her little attic apartment was his home too. Beetlejuice couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a place he could use that name for. It had been centuries, at least.

“I’m sorry.”  


Now it was Lydia’s turn to be taken aback. She never imagined she’d ever hear The Ghost with the Most say those two words to anyone, let alone her.

“I was going to come back. I didn’t realize how late it was. Time moves differently when yer dead.”  


Lydia looked into his eyes, searching for the lie—the joke. She found nothing but honesty. The sight was jarring.

“You were going to come back?”

He nodded.

Lydia bit her lip and nodded back.

“Okay then,” she whispered. “Let’s go home.”

* * *

Beetlejuice expected Lydia to address what transpired on the roof, but as soon as they got home she went to the kitchen, made them hot chocolate and then retreated silently to the couch.

“Babe,” he said, watching her blank expression as she stared out at the stars, “are we gonna discuss what happened up there?”

Lydia slowly turned to look at him. The hollow look in her eyes was one of the most disconcerting sights he’d ever seen.

“There’s nothing to discuss.”  


“Bullshit.” Beetlejuice came over and sat next to her. She tried to look away from him but he reached out and took her face in his hands. “You are _not_ going to die at twenty- one, you hear me?”  


“Shut up.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up when I’m trying to tell you that I care about you.”  


Lydia moved away, tugging her face free from his grip. She got up and marched over to the kitchen, practically throwing her mug in the sink before looking back at him.

“You do _not_ care about me and you know it. You just like messing with me, same as you did in Winter River.”

Beetlejuice stood up and walked over to her, standing on the other side of the counter. “That isn’t true.”

“Yes, it is. You’re just waiting until I feel pathetic enough to give in and sleep with you. Well newsflash, Beetlejuice, I have someone in my life. Someone _living_ who isn’t some perverted old ghost who cons teenage girls into unwilling marriages.”

“Careful, Lydia,” Beetlejuice growled. “Or you’ll say something you regret.”  


Lydia rounded the corner and stood right in front of him, tilting her head back to meet his gaze.

“You don’t care about me. You’re a selfish fucking bastard who only gives a fuck about himself and what he wants and all you do is use me for your—”

Lydia didn’t get to finish her sentence because Beetlejuice took her face in his hands, and this time leaned down and captured her lips with his, trapping her in a searing kiss.

Lydia thought for a split second that she should push him away, but the thought was quickly vanquished by the feel of his mouth against hers. It felt _right._ So she pressed her hands against his chest, grabbing ahold of his lapels and she pulled him closer, wanting him to consumer her. 

He teased his tongue against her lips and Lydia obliged, opening her mouth further to let him in. She couldn’t help but moan and lean further into him as he took claim over her mouth. Beetlejuice growled in response, pressing himself into her in return.

As passionate as the kiss was, it only lasted a few moments before Beetlejuice pulled away. Lydia looked at him with wide eyes. He emptiness from before was now filled up with something she didn't quite understand. Something fiery and foreign.

“Don’t you _ever_ try and tell me that I don’t care about you, Lydia Deetz.”

Lydia parted her lips to speak, but no words came out. Only a soft sigh, her mind reeling with too many thoughts to form any of them into coherent sentences.

“You don’t have to like me,” he said, his voice softening the tiniest bit. “But you have to believe me. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I ain’t ever lied to you. Now, I told you the truth. It’s your turn. Why the hell did I catch you about to throw yourself off the roof?”

“You left me.”

Those three words stunned him into silence. He knew she was upset to come home to an empty apartment, but he couldn’t believe that that was the reason she’d been ready to end it.

“I thought that if even you didn’t want me then no one would. I know that’s stupid, but when I spiral I can’t control where my mind goes.”  


Beetlejuice slid his arms down from her face to wrap around her waist, pulling her against him once again.

“If you think I’d ever truly leave you, then you’re crazier than I thought.”

Lydia just stared at him and he wondered for a moment if his joke had gone too far. But then Lydia showed the smallest glimpse of a smile.

“So,” he said., “you gonna accept that we’re married now.”

Lydia’s smile vanished. She pulled herself free of him again. “I’m going to bed.”

She stalked off, leaving the poltergeist alone with his words.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "...and wonder about the only soul who can tell which smiles I'm faking."
> 
> -Taylor Swift, 'tis the damn season'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to update! Life got too crazy over the holidays. I have the story planned out so it WILL BE COMPLETED in the coming months, do not worry! Will try to update more regularly from here on out.
> 
> A CONTENT WARNING: this chapter has brief depictions of sexual assault (NOT between Beetlejuice and Lydia)

Lydia woke up early for the opening shift at the coffee shop to see that Beetlejuice was gone, but he’d left a note:

_ I’m coming back. Stay off the roof. _

_ -Your husband _

Lydia crumpled the note and went to work.

* * *

Lydia was in the middle of her shift when she noticed Beetlejuice sitting in the corner of the cafe. She sighed and walked over to him. Without thinking she let her hand fall on his shoulder as she rounded the table to sit across from him.

“Hiya, babe.”

“Hi,” she said weakly. “Why’re you here.”   


“I wanted to see you.”

“You can see me at home.”

Again Beetlejuice couldn’t help but feel warmed again by her referring to the apartment as ‘home’ instead of  _ her  _ home.

“Didn’t feel like waiting.”   


“Okay,” Lydia said, not knowing what else to add.

“I’m sorry about the kiss.”   


Lydia narrowed her eyes at him. “No you’re not.”

He smirked. “You’re right. I’m not. But I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable.”   


Lydia rolled her eyes. “Since when do you care about making women uncomfortable? Didn’t you look up Barbara’s skirt when you met her?”

Beetlejuice sighed in fake exasperation as he crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

“You are so pedantic, Miss Deetz.”   


Lydia bit back a smirk of her own.

“You just hate being called out for the pervert you are.”   


Beetlejuice gave her one of his dastardly grins that meant he was up to no good. He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward, closing out some of the space between them.

“Ya gonna lie and tell me ya didn’t like the kiss?”   


Lydia bit her lips and said nothing.

Without thinking, Beetlejuice reached out and pressed his palm against her cheek, cupping it around the curve of her jaw. Lydia stilled against his touch but didn’t move away. Beetlejuice began to gently move his thumb back and forth, and then he gently dragged it across her mouth, tracing the shape of her lips.

“I want to kiss you again,” he said. 

“You do?” Lydia said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

Beetlejuice nodded. “I want to kiss you a thousand times, Miss Deetz. I want to kiss you until you hate me and then keep going until you kill me.”   


“You’re already dead.”   


He grinned. “Then I have nothing to lose.”

Lydia gently pulled herself free from his touch and tried to ignore the disappointed look on his face. She quickly stood up from the table. “I have to get back to work.” She turned to leave but Beetlejuice reached out and grabbed her hand.

“You know I meant everything I said last night, don’t ya?”

Lydia said nothing, just looked into his viscous green eyes, once again searching for the lie and coming up short. She realized he really  _ did  _ mean it, and that was somehow more unsettling to her than if it had all been a cruel joke.

“I…I know.”

Beetlejuice moved his thumb across her hand, tracing small circles against her skin, sending shivers down her spine. She quickly pulled her hand free and rushed back to the counter. Beetlejuice sighed and left.

* * *

Lydia came home to the smell of freshly brewing coffee and the sight of Beetlejuice on her couch, a copy of  _ Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland  _ in his hands. He looked up over the book and grinned at her.

“How was work?”

“Fine.” His words from last night swirled around in her head;  _ If you think I’d ever truly leave you, then you’re crazier than I thought.  _ And then his words from the cafe entered the mix, forming a perfect dance of conflicting feelings;  _ I want to kiss you a thousand times. _

“Beetlejuice,” she said slowly, stepping towards him.

“Hmm?” He turned a page of the book, his gaze dropped from Lydia’s.

“I have a date tonight.”   


Beetlejuice closed the book, she had his full attention.

“Excuse me?”

Lydia sighed. “I knew you’d be like this?”

“Like what?”   


“Annoyed.”   


Beetlejuice said nothing. He  _ was  _ annoyed. He knew logically that one kiss post suicidal episode didn’t suddenly mean Lydia was madly in love with him and dying for his affection and his alone; but he had thought it meant...well,  _ something.  _

“With the little punk rocker I assume?”

Lydia glared at him. He snorted, picking up the book and leaning back in the chair. Let her gallivanting off with that fool, she’d realize he was the better choice soon enough.

“Other people like me besides you, you know.”   


_ That’s not what you thought last night,  _ but he would never dare say that out loud. Not after the sight of her on that ledge. It was an image that would haunt him for the rest of his days. He’d just gotten her back, he couldn’t lose her again. Not like that.

“Where are you going?”   


“You know I don’t have to answer that,” she snapped.

He smirked at her over the edge of the book.

“But you will.”   


Lydia bit her lip and continued to glare at him, he just smiled tauntingly back until she finally groaned and relented.

“I’m going to a party with some of Danny’s friends or something. It’s some artsy loft party.”   


“I didn’t realize you were the ‘artsy loft party’ type. Isn’t that more Delia’s scene?”

“Shut up,” Lydia grumbled, walking over to her dresser and rummaging through a drawer, looking for a nicer black dress than her current coffee-scented one. “Don’t compare me to the red-headed she-devil,” she shot Beetlejuice another burning glance. “ _ Ever.” _

He held up his hands in mock surrender. Lydia groaned again and stalked off to the bathroom to change. Beetlejuice wanted desperately to follow her, but she was already abandoning him tonight to go out with another guy, he figured trying to peep at her undressing wasn’t going to win him any gentleman points in her book.

She emerged fifteen minutes later and Beetlejuice’s jaw almost hit the floor.

Lydia was always stunning but tonight she was ethereal. She wore a short, tight, black lace dress that hung off her shoulders. Her black hair was piled on top of her head in a teased, maddening style that was similar to how it was the day she met him. A black lace ribbon was tied around her throat, and little spider webs dangled from her ears. Her eyes were painted to match the smoky night sky, and her lips looked like the color of rusted blood. It was if the most glamourous vampire was standing before him, fresh outta the coffin. 

“Damn, babe.”   


“Shut up.”   


Beetlejuice put down his book and materialized in front of her. 

“I’m serious,” he said, tucking a finger under her chin, tilting her head back to look at him. “You’re gorgeous.”   


Lydia held his gaze, unsure of what to say. She found it was even harder to know what to say to him when he was being genuine instead of teasing.

“Thank you,” was all she managed, her voice having lost all of its prior bravado.

She expected Beetlejuice to let go, but he kept his hand against her chin, dragging his fingers along the length of her jaw and then across her lips like he’d done earlier in the cafe. Her lipstick didn’t smudge at his touch, but God how he wanted it to. He wanted to crash his mouth against hers and have the shade coat his own skin with the feel of her lips on his. But he saw the scared look in her eyes. She didn’t know what she wanted, but he could tell that in that moment it wasn’t him. She wanted safety and surety and he was neither of those things. He never would be.

“Have fun at your party, doll.”   
  


* * *

Danny and Lydia entered the smoke-scented loft with Danny’s hand on the small of Lydia’s back. “Want a drink?” He whisper-shouted in her ear as the indie music blared around them.

“Sure,” she said, following him to the drink table. There were small glasses of generic red and white wine and a giant punch bowl of jungle juice in the center. Lydia and Danny eyed the punch bowl before each reaching for the cheap wine. 

The night passed in an uneventful blur. They danced and snacked and small-talked and then there was weed and cocaine and Lydia refused the latter and accepted the first. She let a beautiful girl named Ginger exhale tangy, heady smoke in her mouth that made her head light and her troubles vanish. 

Several cheap cups of wine and lungs full of smoke deep in the night, Lydia lost track of Danny. 

She went to hunt down a poet with tattoos named Brad or something like that, that her and Danny had chatted with earlier to ask if he’d seen him, when another man cut her off. She practically fell backwards from the impact but thankfully he caught her.

“Woah, sorry,” he said, his voice deep like a drum.

“S’okay,” Lydia slurred around her wine and smoke-heavy tongue.

“Where ya headed in such a rush, gorgeous?”

“To find my friend.”   


“Ya boyfriend?” The tall, drum-voice man asked with a smirk.

_I don’t have a boyfriend,_ Lydia thought, _just a husband._ Out loud she laughed and said, “No, just a friend.” Then she added, “We hunt ghosts together.”  
“How daring. Can I get you a drink?”

Lydia smiled and nodded, slumping back against the wall. Unlike earlier with Danny, she did not follow this stranger to the drink table, she waited in her drunk and high haze for him to return. When he did it wasn’t with wine but the god forsaken jungle juice. Lydia was so far gone, so deep in a hole of forgetting that she didn’t stop to question it. She took the cup with a smile and drank half of it down right away. 

Lydia found the more she drank the less she thought about suicide. The less she thought about how much she missed the feel of Beetlejuice’s mouth on hers. The more substances she stuffed into her body the less she thought altogether.

And then she was dancing with the drum-voice man. And then he was introducing her to friends of his and they all told her their names but they all sounded too similar and the sounds mixed into the music muddled together in her ears.

The room began to blur in a way that seemed far too muddy for just wine and weed. 

But it wasn’t just wine and weed.

There was the jungle juice.

And...something else.

And then Lydia started losing snippets of time. She was on the couch with drum-voice and two of his friends and then suddenly she was being led down a hallway. 

Snippet.

She was in a bed.

Snippet.

Her mouth was a desert and the pressure on top of her hurt.

Snippet.

It kept happening.

Drum-voice was laughing in her ear.

Snippet.

His friends were shouting lewd things at her.

And the blur shifted into focus just long enough for her to register what was going on, and she screamed.

“Beetlejuice!”   


The men laughed at her, but only for a moment. Because then a green smoke filled the room, and the poltergeist was there. His eyes were red, his skin was practically glowing, and when he opened his mouth it was not the usual smoky, snarky voice she was accustomed to hearing; it was the voice of a monster. 

She watched through hazy eyes as Beetlejuice snapped the neck of every single man in that room. She couldn’t feel her tears or hear her screams but she knew she was crying. She knew she was yelling. And then she felt Beetlejuice’s hand clamp down over her mouth.

“Shhh, babe.” He knew she was scared but he couldn’t have half the loft coming in and finding Lydia hysterical amidst three dead bodies. “I’m gonna take you home. Hold on to me.”   


Lydia obeyed, wrapping her arms around his neck. He pulled her close and the two vanished from the smoky room, appearing back in her attic apartment. 

Beetlejuice went to set Lydia down on her feet but she crumpled, her legs giving out until she collapsed to the floor. 

“Lydia,” he said, his voice strangled with panic as he dropped down next to her.

She was sweating and her eyes started to roll back in her head. He could practically see her life energy flickering out around her.

Too much. Those bastards had given her too much. She was going to die.

“No,” he growled. “No, no, no.”   


He scooped her up again and carried her to the bathroom. He positioned her over the toilet and pulled her hair back away from her face.

“Come on, babe,” he pleaded. “Throw it up. Get it out of your system, please.” But Lydia was fading fast. He tried to gently slap her cheeks but she wouldn’t open her eyes. He could feel her life leaving her body. “ _ No,”  _ he hissed, practically hysterical himself. The image of Lydia on the ledge came rushing back to him. Then he heard her words from the first night we met,  _ I wanna get in.  _ No. No she was not ‘getting in.’ He was not losing her to a roof, or a drugged drink, or anything. He would save this girl if it was the last thing he did. 

“Forgive me for this, babe.” He opened her mouth and stuck two fingers down her throat until she gagged, vomiting up the jungle juice and the drugs those bastards had dumped inside it. 

Beetlejuice held her hair and rubbed her back as she threw up, her body shaking and sweating and terrified. When she finished and slumped back against him, she was sobbing, only half aware of where she was. He held her tight to his chest, and then he noticed her eyes fluttering closed again.

“No, babe,” he pleaded. “You need to stay awake.”

But Lydia didn’t hear him, she was drifting away. So far away.

He growled in frustration as he dragged her into the shower with him and turned on the water. Soon ice cold water beat down over the two of them. Lydia gasped, her eyes shooting wide open and locking onto Beetlejuice’s. She practically screamed as the icy cold splashed down on her. Her fingers dug into his arms as he held her firmly around the waist. 

“Beetlejuice,” she whispered.

The two kept their eyes locked on each other, and she realized that he...was  _ crying _ .

She reached up and gently brushed away the water on his cheeks that wasn’t just from the shower. “Beetlejuice,” she said again.

“Babe,” he rasped.

She left her hand against his jaw as she felt her own tears cloud her vision. She opened her mouth to speak again but this time only a sob escaped. She collapsed against him and he wrapped his arms tightly around her. Holding her close as she wept, her body shaking from the pain and the cold. 

“Beetlejuice,” she said a third time, holding onto him like he was a life raft and she was lost at sea.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and wrapped his arms around her as tight as he could.

“I’m here,” he whispered against the rush of the water.

“Don’t let go,” she sobbed.

“I won’t.”   


After a small eternity their bodies were both numb to the chill of the water and Beetlejuice was confident that Lydia was very much still alive. He shut off the water and helped her out of the shower.

“Why aren’t you wet?” She asked, taking in his dry suit as opposed to her soaking wet attire.

“I’m dead,” was the only answer he supplied. “Come on, we gotta get you in some warm clothes.”   


He went out the door and returned with the oversized sweater he always saw her sleep in. She took it gingerly and closed the door softly to change, peeling the wet clothes away from her like a second skin. When she opened the door Beetlejuice was pacing back and forth nervously. He stopped when he saw her.

“You should get some rest,” he said.

Lydia nodded but said nothing. 

The two just stood there, staring at each other.

Finally Lydia stepped forward towards her bed and crawled under the covers. Beetlejuice watched her get settled and then turned to leave, to head across the room to his now usual spot in the armchair. But then he felt Lydia’s cold hand on his, pulling him back. He turned around to meet her gaze again.

“Don’t go,” she whispered.

“I won’t, babe. I promise.”   


“No, I mean,” she took a shaky breath. “Don’t sleep on the chair.”   


And then she did the unthinkable. She shifted over so that there was room for Beetlejuice.

“Lydia…”

She looked into his green eyes and knew that this was not the villain from her adolescence. This was not the snake that terrorized her family or the con man perched on a grave who begged for a sketchy contract. This was not some perverted flirt, or demonic entity. This was her friend. This was the only person who truly understood her. This was the person who had saved her.

“You won’t hurt me,” she said softly.

Beetlejuice gently squeezed her hand.

“No, I won’t.”   


Lydia gave him a weak smile. “Then come to bed.”   


Beetlejuice hesitated another moment, hardly able to believe what was happening. But finally he let go of her hand and took off his jacket, tie, and boots and climbed into bed beside her. The two laid next to each other in silence for a few moments, before Lydia finally found his hand under the blankets and entwined her fingers through his. And then he was pulling her close, wrapping her up in his arms once more, and the two fell asleep, two bodies pressed together like one.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I burn for you."
> 
> -Bridgerton

Beetlejuice had been on the roof of the apartment where the party was being held when he had heard Lydia’s scream.

Before that he’d come up to smoke, knowing inside at the party the pretentious hippies were only allowing joints and bowls, as if the scent of ghostly tobacco was really going to taint the air anymore than the copious amounts of marijuana. 

He found the woman from the paintings on the roof. He sighed.

“How did you even get here?”

He knew most ghosts weren’t bound the way the Maitlands were, but it was always annoying to find one's self followed by a pesky ghost. Like getting gum stuck on the bottom of your shoe.

“Does she know you’re here?”

“Why do you ask stupid questions?”

“Why don’t you tell her about all the other women?”

Beetlejuice practically growled at her words.

“Why are you so invested in this? Ya working for Juno now or something?”   


“Yes.”

_ That  _ surprised him. He knew Juno hated him; he knew she  _ really  _ hated him since the Winter River incident, but he wasn’t aware that the old Junebug was keeping tabs on  Lydia’s whereabouts or that he was with her.

“What’s that old hag care? Lydia’s my wife, ain’t breaking any laws or rules from some musty old handbook by being with her.”

“Juno doesn’t trust that you’ll behave.”   


“Why wouldn’t I? I got what I wanted.”   


“Men like you have a tendency to always want more.”

Beetlejuice opened his mouth to argue when he’d heard Lydia scream his name.

Later that night as he’d fallen asleep beside her in bed, his arms wrapped around her, he wondered how he could want anything more than this; than  _ her.  _ He had been so hungry for life, for power, for dominance. Now all he hungered for was her.  _ All  _ of her. Juno be damned, he wouldn’t let any ghost in the wall or old crank down in the Netherworld ruin this.

* * *

Lydia woke up to the feeling of a dozen jackhammers inside her head and a raging ocean in her stomach. She could smell fresh coffee and hot chocolate and as the hazy apartment came into clearer view she remembered. _Everything_.

She sat up in bed suddenly, a hand going to cover her mouth to keep from releasing a panicked sob. She looked around her to make sure that she was in  _ her  _ bed in  _ her  _ home. 

“Lydia.”

She looked across at the kitchen to see the Ghost with the Most leaning up against the counter, a cup of coffee in his hand. She looked for the pity in his eyes, the kind that she was sure he would have for her after the events of last night. The kind of pity that disgusted her. But in his eyes she only saw concern. Worry.  _ Agony.  _ He ached for her so deeply and she had no idea.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” was the first thing she said.

He nodded. “Then we won’t talk about it. I made coffee and hot chocolate, didn't know which one you’d prefer for a hangover. If they both taste bad then we can go out somewhere to get some.”   


Lydia hesitated, somewhat shocked that he’d granted her wish and ignored the trauma that was slowly settling over her heart and chosen instead to take to discussing morning beverages.

“Mix the hot chocolate in the coffee.”

He smiled. “Will do.”   


Lydia got out of bed and went over to the couch. She settled down as the poltergeist handed her a mug full of chocolatey caffeine. He settled down next to her with his own mug of black coffee. The two sat in silence for a few minutes before Beetlejuice reached out and took her free hand in his. Lydia didn’t turn to look at him, but she moved her hand to weave her fingers through his. Beetlejuice felt a small jolt in his dead heart from the movement.

This was nowhere near all of her, but it was a start and for now it was enough. 

* * *

As Lydia left for work later that day she found Danny on the front steps. She halted when she saw him.

“Lydia!” He said, jumping to his feet. “There you are, when I couldn’t find you last night I got so worried.”

“Why didn’t you come knock on my door?” She snapped. “And what do you mean you couldn’t find me? It’s not like that apartment was that big.”   


“I know it wasn’t. I went to the roof to get some air for a few minutes and when I came back you were gone. What happened?”   


“I don’t want to talk about it,” Lydia said tersely, echoing her words from earlier as she ducked her head down and pushed past Danny off the steps and onto the sidewalk. 

He persistently followed after her. 

“Lydia, I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you. Wanna go ghost hunting again tonight?”   


“No,” Lydia snapped. “I’m done with ghost hunting and I’m done with you.”

“Lydia…”   


“Goodbye, Danny,” she said as she walked on ahead.

* * *

Lydia spent the work day spacing out. It hurt too much to be present with her own thoughts so she chose instead to let her mind wander into nothingness until her coworkers would have to elbow her or jostle her shoulder to snap her out of her daze. 

After a never-ending eight-hour shift Lydia’s hair coated in the scent of coffee beans and her legs were wobbly from standing still for so long. 

She wrapped herself up in her bulky coat and scarf and left the cafe, only to find Danny waiting outside. She glared at him.

“Lydia, give me a chance to explain.”   


Lydia said nothing, just walked past him, but this time he followed.

“I know you think I abandoned you, but I swear I didn’t. But regardless, I want to make it up to you.”   


Lydia finally stopped in her tracks next to him. The moon and stars were out casting an ethereal glow across the cliche’s pale skin and it had just begun to flurry, coating him in a soft wintery down, looking like sugar in his hair and lashes.

“How?” She demanded.

He reached into his pocket and produced a small necklace with a white rabbit on it. She gently took it from him, turning it over in her hands. It was beautiful.

“Being with you is like falling down a rabbit hole,” he said. “Insane, and fun, and maddening, and brilliant, and I want to keep falling. Please.”   


Lydia looked up at him again and thrust the necklace back into his hands.

“No.”

She walked away from him for the second time within twenty-four hours, and this time he did not follow.

* * *

Lydia entered her apartment to the sound of ABBA. Specifically  _ Gimme Gimme Gimme.  _

“Beetlejuice?” She asked uncertainly. 

“Hiya, babe,” a familiar smoky voice said from across the room.

The ghost made his way over to her, swaying and moving with the music, a glass of wine in each hand. Lydia couldn’t help but break a smile at the ridiculous sight of the supposedly ferocious poltergeist dancing to disco music with glasses of pinot noir in his hands. 

He stopped before her and held a glass of wine out between them, still swaying to the music. She took the glass and threw half of it back in one go. As she brought it back down from her lips he reached out and snatched it away from her, depositing both of their glasses on the counter. He turned back to her and held out his hands.

“Dance with me, darlin.”   


Any other night with any other person, Lydia would’ve said no. Even any other previous night with _him_ she would’ve said no. But here, now, with the moon shining in through the window and his toothy grin, and the blare of the makeshift disco, and the hurt in her heart, she put her hands in his and let him lead her into the center of her tiny apartment.

He spun her around and she couldn’t help but laugh. He grinned back at her as he brought her back in just as the song faded out and was replaced with  _ The Name of the Game.  _ He wrapped his arms around her waist and began to move both of their bodies to the rhythm of the music until Lydia relented to his guidance and joined in. She rested her head against his chest and let the music swell in her ears, the lyrics beginning to strike a chord on the violin strings of her heart:  _ I was an impossible case, no one ever could reach me. But I think I can see in your face, there’s a lot you can teach me. So I wanna know, what’s the name of the game? _

Lydia leaned back and tilted her head to look up at Beetlejuice at the same exact moment he looked down at her. His fierce green eyes latching onto her own, making her heart skip and butterfly wings beat inside her stomach.

“Are we friends?” She asked softly.

She felt Beetlejuice slowly drag his fingers up her back until he rested his palms flat against her mid back, the pressure of his fingers sending shivers down her spine.

“I’d certainly hope so.”   


He smiled and she smiled back.

“Beetlejuice?”   


“Hmm?”   


“Do you…” she took a deep breath, “do you really think of yourself as my husband?”   


“Yes,” he said, startling her by not even hesitating.

Because he didn’t need to. He was sure. He’d never been more sure of anything in his entire existence.

“Okay then,” Lydia said softly.

“Okay?” He repeated back, unsure of what she meant.

In lieu of an answer, Lydia stood on tip toe and pressed her mouth to his.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It is a dangerous thing to unbelieve something only because it frightens you.”
> 
> -Heartless by Marissa Meyer

Lydia woke to screams, but instead of coming from the wall they were coming from her own mouth. She felt arms wrap tight around her and she screamed even louder.

“Shhh, babe, it’s me.”   


Lydia opened her eyes and looked down to see arms clad in striped sleeves wrapped around her and not the sweaty, smoke-scented arms of the guy at the party. The guy with the beguiling smile who made her feel pretty and normal and wanted. She closed her eyes again, trying to keep herself from crying.

“Let go,” she said softly, and the poltergeist obeyed.

It wasn’t his touch that she loathed in that moment; but she realized her own mother could resurrect from the grave right then and there and wrap her in her arms and it would still repulse her. Every touch felt like  _ his  _ tough— _ their  _ touch, and it was maddening. She didn’t know how to wash it away, how to erase it. 

“Lydia,” Beetlejuice said, his voice low and rough. It carried that serious, agonized tone that made her uncomfortable. She was used to his joking and taunting; used to his tone always having a hidden layer of snark to it. When she heard the raw way it ripped through his throat like it did now, it put her at unease. She didn’t know how to process true emotion from him. She didn’t know how to show him true emotion herself.

“I’m okay,” she said.

“No, you’re not.”   


“I will be,” was her response, hoping he’d leave it at that.

If it had been a few weeks ago, when he’d first come to haunt her as her official Netherworld-approved husband, he would’ve left it at that. But after last night, dancing with her, the feeling of her mouth gently and kindly pressing against his, he  _ couldn’t  _ leave it at that. It was obvious she was in pain, and he couldn’t bear to see her standing on the ledge of anymore rooftops. 

“Will you?” He asked.

She still wouldn’t look at him. 

“I don’t want you to pity me.”

“I don’t.”

She couldn’t help it, she scoffed.

“Yeah right, anyone would. Or maybe you think it’s my fault and you’re judging me for being so stupid.”   


At that remark he reached out and took her chin in his hand, turning her to face him.

“I do  _ not  _ think it’s your fault. And I never would, so get that thought out of your head right now, do ya hear me?”   


Lydia nodded against the pressure of his hand still on her face, holding her in place, forcing her gaze to meet his.

“Don’t push me away, Lydia. Not when you just let me in.”   


“Why do you want in?” She whispered. “I’m just as broken now as I was before, if not more so.”   


“Why would someone else’s evil make you broken? Do you think the Maitlands became worse people than they were before just because I came around and fucked shit up for them? No. They’re still as boring and goody-two-shoes as they come. And, for the record, I  _ never  _ thought you were broken.”   


“Only broken people want to kill themselves.”   


Beetlejuice held her gaze. For what felt like the first time, he truly saw how much hurt and agony was there, swimming in her irises, and he couldn’t help but wonder how he had never seen how much pain she was really in. He slowly lowered his hand from her chin, expecting her to turn away again, but she didn’t. She kept her gaze locked on his.

“Then I guess I’m broken too.”   


Silence fell over them like a fishing net, tangling them and drowning them with those six words he’d just said. 

“Beetlejuice…”   


“Ask what you want to ask,” he said quietly.

“How…” she didn’t finish the sentence because they both knew what she meant.

“Hanged myself.”   


The fishnet silence returned for a few moments.

“That’s why...your voice.”

He nodded. “You probably just thought it was from smoking,” he tried to smile with his attempt at a joke, and Lydia gave in and smiled back.

“I did. I forgot something the Maitlands told me once, about how most ghosts carry some kind of physical marker of how they died. They didn’t look drowned though so I guess I never really wondered about you. I guess...If I’d...well I would look pretty ghastly right now.”

“You’re here right now.  _ Alive _ .”

He reached out and took her hand in his. His words had scrubbed away enough of the memories of the night of the party for her to endure his touch without feeling like her skin was crawling. It didn’t hold the usual thrilling pulse that it did when her mind wasn’t clouded with traumatic thoughts, but it was comforting enough to help keep them at bay. 

“Do you really want to stay with me?” She asked.

“Babe, why would I want to leave?”   


“Because,” she said softly, “I’m crazy.”   


At that he laughed. “And what? You think I’m not?” He gave her hand a small squeeze. “Babydoll, I’m as mad as a hatter and I’m here to stay as long as you’ll have me.”

* * *

There was a party that night at the art gallery where Lydia’s second job. It would run late so she’d handed Beetlejuice her library card and told him not to wait up for her. He’d then reminded her that he didn’t need to sleep and very much would be waiting up for her and she’d laughed and left.

Four hours and several trays of shrimp puffs and wine later, Lydia’s arms were tired from serving the wealthy, entitled guests and enduring the leering eyes of the old male patrons. Her coworker, a straight, white, male philosophy major named Christian (in Lydia’s mind, the worst kind of person) kept lecturing her about the importance of getting a degree. Lydia didn’t want to endure a winless argument with the embodiment of pretentious itself, so she started downing the wine when no one was looking. 

“It really helps you grow as a person to get an arts degree.”

Nevermind that Lydia wouldn’t even want an arts degree (as much as she loved photography, the older she got the more it felt like a hobby than a passion), she hadn’t spoken to Charles or Delia in so long she doubted they’d be willing to shell out the money for school, and she barely made enough as it was to get by. 

“Yeah,” she said for the millionth time, nodding as Christian rambled about how over hyped Monet was. And then she saw a savior come through the door.

Danny.

Lydia was still furious with him for abandoning her at the party, but she was dying for any reason to get away from Christian. 

“Sorry, I see a friend. Be right back,” she said to Christian, scurrying away so fast she almost spilled the wine on her tray.

Danny saw her approaching and smiled. He was in his usual grungy black attire, but he’d put a blazer on over his ripped Nirvana t-shirt and done his eyeliner in more drastic wings than usual. 

“Hi,” she said softly, her hands shaking so hard the wine on the tray wobbled.

“Hi,” he said back, sounding just as nervous as her. “I know you don’t want to see me but...I was hoping we could talk.”   


“Okay,” Lydia said. “We can, when the party is over.”   


“When’s that?”   


“Twenty minutes.”  _ Thank God,  _ she thought.

Danny nodded. “I’ll wait out back, in the alley.”   


Lydia nodded back and watched him turn and go. Then she saw Christian approaching her and she downed another glass of wine.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Lydia was slightly tipsy as she walked out to the alley, pulling her coat tighter around her. She wobbled a bit in her heeled boots as she made her way over to where Danny was leaning against the brick wall like some kind of John Hughes character.

“Hey,” she said, her words turning to dragon-like puffs in the cold winter air. “Talk.”   


Danny looked a bit startled by her bluntness but jumped up and began to speak.

“I fucked up, Lydia. I shouldn’t have left you alone at the party. I should’ve come right back with our drinks like I said I would. But I got...overwhelmed. It happens sometimes and I needed some air and then on the roof there was...someone, and it distracted me.”

“Who was on the roof?” Lydia asked.

“What? No one. Just some annoying person I used to know. I didn’t think they’d be there, and they started badgering me about stupid stuff from our past and—”

“Was this person an ex?”   


Danny paused. His hesitation was answer enough. 

“I was date-raped,” she said. Her voice was colder than the air.

Danny said nothing. His mouth closed into a tight line, his coal-lined eyes boring into hers.

“I don’t know what to say, Lydia. I could say I’m sorry, but I know that’s not enough.” 

He reached into his pocket and took out the white rabbit necklace again and again Lydia refused it. He looked embarrassed but like he understood as he shoved it back into his pocket. 

“Nothing I can say or do will be enough to fix it.”

Lydia nodded. “It’s not the kind of thing that _can_ be fixed.”

The two stood in silence for a few moments, the winter quiet was deafening.

Danny tilted his head back and looked to the sky.

“Do you ever miss the stars?” He asked.

“Yes,” Lydia said without missing a beat. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember that there are people out there who get to see them every night.”   


Danny looked back at her. “Want to see them now?”

“How? You gonna get everyone in New York City to turn off their lights?”

“No. But I can take you somewhere else, somewhere where the sky stays dark enough at night to see the stars shine.”

Lydia said nothing, just stared into Danny’s eyes. She realized she still barely knew him, and that even though she’d been alone with him several times and nothing bad had happened there was still a chance he could prove to be a Ted Bundy type. But she remembered how Beetlejuice had heard her call out to him even when he wasn’t there. She figured it must be because they were married that he could always hear her call. Which meant she was always protected as long as she was able to say his name.

So she nodded and followed Danny out of the alley and down the street where he stopped before a red convertible. “Damn,” she said. “A New Yorker who drives?”   


“I know,” he said with a smirk as he opened the passenger door for her. “I’m a dying breed.”   


She laughed and climbed in. Two hours later they were in Greenport, pulling up to park near the water.

Danny jogged around to her side and helped her out, closing her door behind her. He held her hand still as he led them down a dock. The two sat down at the end of it, their legs dangling over the sides. Lydia tilted her head back and drank in the sight of the stars. She let the starlight bathe her, and felt as if the horrors of her world could be washed away, if only for one night.

She felt Danny’s eyes on her, she turned to look at him and tried to make sense of the mesmerized look on his face.

“Have you ever been in love?” He asked.

Lydia smirked, trying to bring levity to his all too serious question. “This is only what? Our second date?”

He laughed. “I don’t mean with me. I just mean in general.”

“Still a crazy second date question,” she said.

“Okay then don’t think of this as a second date, think of it as an outing between two people who longed to see the stars. If love isn’t a question worthy of the stars then I don’t know what is.”   


L ydia shook her head, laughing softly.

“No,” she said, looking back at him. “I haven’t.” She could’ve sworn she saw the light in his eyes dim. “But….I think I’ve been in hate.”   


At that Danny laughed. “I’m sorry?”

“You know, in hate. Haven’t you ever read a good enemies to lovers book like  _ Pride & Prejudice?  _ Where you feel this immediate electricity with someone but there’s also this… infuriating energy about them that makes you hate them.”   


“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Have you ever seen  _ Phantom of the Opera?”  _ She asked.

Danny nodded. “Once.”

“There’s a lyric where the Phantom sings to Christine, ‘fear can turn to love.’”

“But you said ‘hate’ now you mean in ‘fear?’”   


“No,” Lydia said, trying not to get frustrated that he wasn’t understanding her. “I mean when you hate someone, but you also know how easy it would be... _ not  _ to hate them. And you know that logically it would be wrong to feel anything other than hate for them and that can be...terrifying. So you also fear them because they’re so powerful, and you hate them so much and you know—you just  _ know  _ that you would like them if you gave yourself the chance. If you threw away logic and gave into the initial electricity. But…” she looked away from Danny and out over the water, “...we all let fear rule our lives in one way or another. So you don’t give in to the curiosity that initial electricity sparks. You don’t let yourself laugh at the absurdity of them pulling snakes out of their pocket at a wedding, or them tap dancing to smash a pair of teeth fallen from a ghost’s mouth. You don’t let yourself say their name a final time the first time they ask you, even though you  _ want  _ to so badly because they’re the most exciting person you’ve ever met.” She finally looked back at him. “You don’t let yourself push past the fear and the hate because you know that everyone else will never understand. So no, I’ve never been in love. Because I’ve been too afraid to try.”   


“Lydia,” Danny said, “were you...in  _ hate _ with one of the ghosts in your old house?”   


“Of course I was, you idiot.”

“Well...what happened? Did you ever tell them?”

“No. I never got the chance.”

“Would you tell them now if you could?” 

Lydia kept waiting for him to call her crazy, or ask for her to explain in more detail what the hell she meant by mentioning weddings and ghost teeth, but his eyes just looked at her with earnest and honest curiosity. There wasn’t a shred of judgment in sight.

“It’s stupid, because all the people who would’ve judged me back then—who  _ did  _ judge me back then—aren’t around now. And yet I’m still too afraid to try and push past the hate.”

“Is it because this person...is a ghost?”   


Lydia couldn’t help but laugh. “You’d think that would be the most concerning part about it. But no, that’s not why. It never really was. I’m far too weird to care about something as trivial as a pulse.”   


Danny smirked.

“I like you, Lydia.”   


Lydia smiled back at him. “I like you too.”   


“Do you forgive me?”

“Yes,” she said softly, taking his hand in hers. “I forgive you.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Fo who could ever learn to love a beast?"
> 
> -Disney's Beauty & the Beast

Lydia walked into her apartment, slamming the door and kicking off her heels before marching over to Beetlejuice who was sitting in his usual spot in the armchair, reading _Dracula._

“Did you know I used to hate you.”

Beetlejuice didn’t bother looking up from his book.

“I was never sure but the couple dozen times you told me that you hated me gave me an inkling.”

“Do you want to know why I hated you?”

Beetlejuice sighed and closed his book, setting it down on the table. “Why did you hate me, Lydia? Because of the marriage? The snake? Shooting your father’s friends through the ceiling?”

“No, because I felt like I was supposed to.”

That surprised him. He had always assumed that Lydia’s supposed hatred for him had sprouted from the same reasons that the Maitlands hated him. The violence. The chaos.

“I wanted to say your name. That first time. When you were all tiny in Adam’s model. I wanted to free you.”

 _That_ surprised him even more.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I knew the Maitlands wouldn’t want me to. I knew my parents wouldn’t want me to. I knew there was something about you that would make most living people go mad. As if you were chaos incarnate.”

Beetlejuice couldn’t help but smirk.

“Darling, I _am._ ”

“I know.”

“Why are you telling me this?” He asked. “Why now?”

“Because you’re my husband.”

Beetlejuice froze. Those four words hitting him like a hammer to the heart. Hearing them felt like finally breathing fresh air after having been buried alive.

“Lydia...”

“It’s true, isn’t it? That’s what you keep saying. Keep insisting. It’s why you’re here. I wanted to free you back then because you were the most interesting person I’d ever met.

The most exciting. The most bold. Everything I wished I could be. But you’re also a monster, and logically little girls aren’t supposed to invite monsters out of the shadows and into their bed.”

“Lydia, you’re not Little Red Riding Hood and I’m not the wolf.”

“Aren’t you though?” She said, taking a small step closer to him. “Did you ever read the French version?” 

Beetlejuice said nothing, he had in fact read it, but he knew Lydia was in the middle of a mentally rehearsed monologue and he didn’t want to interrupt. 

“As you’re pretty, so be wise. Wolves may lurk in every guise.”

He nodded. “I know the rhyme, darlin. But I never dressed up as your granny to try and trick ya into bed.”

Lydia glared at him and he smirked. “Can you take me seriously for like five minutes?”

His smile remained, but softened into one that was less mocking and more amused.

“I understand what you’re trying to say,” he said. “Tell me, have you ever read _The Company of Wolves?”_ _  
_

“By Angela Carter? Yes.”

“Well, I think that version matches your tale, _our_ tale a bit better than Perrault’s. Don’t you?” 

He smirked again and Lydia groaned, tilting her head back and closing her eyes, trying to keep her composure. 

“Stop doing that,” she said, her eyes still closed, her head still back.

“Doing what?” He asked with fake innocence.

She dropped her gaze back down to meet his “Being right.” 

Lydia _did_ know the story. The woman who lives out in the woods with her husband who leaves one night and never comes back. Until years later when it is clear he’s been roaming the woods as a wolf. The woman at first thinks to shut him out and get help but in the end the woman welcomes the beast in and lets the bloody, brilliant carnage of such a creature consume her.

Lydia had first read it when she was fifteen. It had been ghastly. It had been passionate. It had utilized unapologetically sexual tones in a way she wasn’t accustomed to at the time. To read a narrative that so blatantly paired sex with the monstrous was horrifying and invigorating. 

Looking at the poltergeist before her. A creature who called himself her _husband,_ she knew he was right. She had grown up on a healthy dose of _Beauty and the Beast_ narratives. Longing for that kind of gothic romance for as long as she could remember. She got high off the notion of being the fair maiden who was the only one who could save the damned creature. 

She was no Red Riding Hood. Red always defeated the monster, Beauty always welcomed him in. 

“I was with Danny again tonight.”

“I see,” Beetlejuice said as calmly as he could. “Why are you telling me?”

“Because I don’t want to _be_ with him. But that’s what I’m supposed to want, isn’t it? The living person. The normal life.”

“I’ve always found normal to be overrated.”

Lydia glanced to the side table where _Dracula_ was perched on top of _Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland._ She’d seen the poltergeist read it several times since coming to haunt her. It was an easy guess that it was his favorite book.

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. What it would be, it wouldn’t. And what it wouldn’t be, it would.”

Beetlejuice recognized her words immediately. He smiled. The honest kind of smile that she adored.

“If you had your own world of nonsense, what would you do, Lydia Deetz?”

“I would stop caring about what I’m supposed to do and just do what I want.”

Beetlejuice reached out across the small space between them and took her hand in his.

“And what do you want?” He said softly.

Lydia hesitated. She thought of the Beast dying in the garden without Beauty. She thought of the woman in Angela’s story willingly opening her door to the roaming wolf. Lydia saw herself in those stories more clearly than if she were to look upon her own face in the mirror.

“You,” she whispered. “I want you. Whatever that means. Whatever that entails.”

“Babe,” he said, pulling her close until she stumbled forward and into his lap. He reached up with his free hand and traced the backs of his knuckles down the curve of her jaw.

“You’ve had me. All along.”

“Not true,” she breathed. “When you first saw me you just wanted a way out.”

“Yes, but I also wanted to stop a beautiful woman from killing herself. And then I just wanted a beautiful woman.”

“You didn’t even know me.”

“I know you now. I knew just by looking at you back then that you were somebody I could relate to and now I know that you are.”

Lydia looked into his eyes, their fierce green like a wildfire raging across her life, destroying every inhibition that had once stood in her way.

“You’ve seen me at my worst and know my whole story, but I know almost nothing of yours. Tell me something about you. Anything.”

“Lydia…” he hated when she asked questions like this because he knew he could never give her an answer that would truly satisfy.

“I’ll tell you something about me that you don’t know, then you tell me something.”

He did not want to play this game, but for her he would. He nodded for her to go on.

She boldly held his gaze as she said: “My favorite color isn’t black. It’s red.”

It took Beetlejuice a moment to fully comprehend what she had said.

“Oh,” he said softly. “ _Oh.”_ _  
_

Lydia smiled, feeling just the tiniest bit triumphant. 

“Now tell me something.”

“I used to paint.” It was all he could think to share with her that he knew for sure wouldn’t hurt her.

“When?”

“When I was alive.”

“Why did you stop?”

“Because,” he said, trying not to appear as exasperated as he felt, “when you die the colors of the world become...muted. Nothing looked or felt the same. I felt numb. I _was_ numb. I guess I didn’t feel, and that was the whole problem. How can someone who feels nothing create art when the very purpose of art is to evoke feeling.”  
Lydia reached out tentatively and pressed her hand against his chest, where his heart would still beat if he were alive.

“Do you feel now?”

“With you?” She nodded. “Lydia with you I feel _everything_.”

Lydia held his gaze, feeling her own wealth of emotions. Before Beetlejuice everything had seemed muted to her as well. She had looked at the world through a grey tinge; now everything was in screaming color. 

“Everything about you, about my wanting to be with you, is madness,” she said softly.

The poltergeist smiled up at her. He reached behind her and cupped his hand against the back of her neck. “My darling, Lydia, we’re all mad here.” 

Then he kissed her, and she didn’t hesitate in kissing him back. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close. Lydia reached up and knotted her hands in his messy, green hair and leaned into his embrace. When she felt his tongue tease at her mouth, she parted her lips to let him invade her. She felt his cold fingers press into the small of her back as she shifted so that she was straddling him. 

Beetlejuice dropped his mouth from hers and began to kiss along her jaw and then down her neck, savoring the soft exhales and mewls that came from Lydia as he did. She tilted her head back to let him have better access to her throat, and like a wonderful, wicked wolf in a story, he devoured her. His teeth bit into her neck and Lydia hissed in beautiful pain, wrapping her arms around his neck. Beetlejuice pulled back to meet her gaze, she was short of breath and felt wild with want.

“Babe,” he said softly, his voice ragged.

He said nothing else. Lydia knew what words were trapped on his tongue. 

“I know,” she said, pressing her palm against his cheek. “Kiss me again.”

He smiled and obliged, pressing his mouth against hers and greedily taking her in. Once again she gave herself over to his hands.

After what felt like ages, Lydia broke the kiss, her mouth was red and the hour was late.

“I need to go to bed,” she said softly. 

Beetlejuice’s smile faltered. But he nodded and didn’t fight her to let him follow as he did when he’d first come to haunt her weeks ago. “Okay, babe,” he said.

Lydia climbed off him and retreated to the bathroom to shower. Beetlejuice picked back up his book.

Half an hour later Lydia emerged from the shower and walked out to stand before Beetlejuice who was engrossed once again in his gothic vampire narrative.

“Beetlejuice,” Lydia said quietly, nervously.

The ghost looked up, and if he hadn’t already been dead, his heart would’ve stopped.

Lydia was standing before him wearing nothing but a red bra and matching underwear. 

He slowly closed his book and set it aside, fighting like hell to keep his eyes on hers and not let them wildly roam around her body. If it had been years ago, even weeks ago, and Lydia had been any other woman, he would’ve done just that. But Lydia— _his_ Lydia—was the cliched exception to the rule. The girl that gets the player to quit the game. The gilded key to unlock the monster’s cold, dead, heart.

Lydia was the girl who could learn to love a beast.

“Is that,” Beetlejuice said, finally allowing his eyes to travel down the wondrous sight that was her red-lace-clad body, “for me?”

He dragged his eyes back up to meet hers. She said nothing. Just nodded.

And then the poltergeist did something not Lydia, nor anyone, ever could’ve imagined happening. A sight no one would believe if they hadn’t seen it for themselves.

He got off the chair and onto the floor. Then, the Ghost with the Most got on his hands and knees, and _crawled_ over to Lydia Deetz.

Lydia’s breath caught in her throat. Beetlejuice kept his eyes trained on hers the entire time until he was right before her. He perched up on his knees and wrapped his hands around the backs of her thighs. Lydia was still holding his gaze and holding her breath

“Are you sure?” He asked. His mind thought back to her the other night. Nearly dead on the bathroom floor. Drugged and screaming beneath those man’s hands. He didn’t want to become another nightmare in her mind. If he was going to touch her like this, _have_ her like this, he wanted her to want it. He _needed_ her to want him as badly as he wanted her.

“Yes,” she said. “I am.”

“Lydia,” he said, his voice low and primal, “if we do this, then there’s no going back. You’re _mine._ And I am warning you right now, I am selfish and cruel.” 

“So am I,” she said, her voice both vicious and gentle against the freezing night air in the old attic. “But I need your cruelty.” She reached out and placed her hands on his shoulders. “Just as you need mine.”

The ghoul smiled up at her. “You may not be a little girl, Lydia, but I’m still a monster.”

“I know,” she insisted. “But you’re _my_ monster.” 

With those four words on her tongue and the sweet sound of them in his ears, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to the inside of her thigh. Lydia stiffened against the touch and then dug her nails into his shoulders for balance as his mouth made its way higher and higher up. When he reached her underwear Lydia tugged on his jacket, causing him to break away and look back up at her.

“You’re too dressed,” she said.

He grinned devilishly at her and rose slowly to tower over her once again. Lydia reached out and slid his jacket down his arms and then undid his tie from around his throat. She moved onto the buttons on his shirt, methodically unfastening them one by one. Beetlejuice stared at her intently the whole time; enraptured by the sight of his little gothic bride undressing him.

When she finally finished unbuttoning the shirt and it fell away to the floor Lydia’s eyes landed on the red mark around his throat. Her gaze flickered up to his for only a moment before she leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to his neck. Beetlejuice hissed and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her close and then slowly backing her up and over to the bed. The two hesitated for only a moment, their eyes landing on one another’s one last time.

“Be sure, Lydia,” he warned one final time.

“I’m sure.”

Without anymore hesitation the two became a storm of mouths and hands and limbs tangling together as they worked to rid each other of their last remaining pieces of clothing. They fell back on the bed like it was a piece of choreography they’d rehearsed for months. Everything about their bodies made sense together; their mouths fit perfectly, their hips slid into place, their hands pressing and clasping and weaving as beautifully as the strokes of a paint brush.

And then Beetlejuice pressed into her and Lydia tilted her head back and moaned and the ghost drank down the sound, wanting to get drunk off it. Wanting to coat himself in it. Wanting to never forget the sound of Lydia Deetz being pleasured by him.

They carried on that way for well over an hour before the two finally collapsed in each other’s arms, a mess of blankets and bodies, each breathing heavy even though only one of them needed to. Beetlejuice looked over at Lydia and she smiled.

“What?” He asked, smiling back.

Lydia shifted forward and kissed him, and then murmured against his mouth:

“Oh, how I love the company of wolves.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”
> 
> -Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Instead of screams, Lydia woke to knocking. Not within the walls, but on her front door.

“Beetlejuice,” she murmured, her head still swimming in the place between sleep and awake. “What is that?”   


Beetlejuice, who didn’t require sleep and therefore was never able to drift that deep into it, woke at the first knock. 

“Someone’s at the door,” he said, absentmindedly running his hand down her arm.

Lydia opened her eyes and looked to where he was sitting up, looking down at her. Her eyes flicked past him to the clock on the wall. It was three a.m. Why did everything in her life come in threes?

“Who would be here at this hour?” She asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. 

Lydia considered letting it go. It was probably just someone drunk and confused, knocking on the wrong door. But then she heard a familiar voice. A voice she hadn’t heard in years. A voice she hadn’t planned on ever having to hear again.

“Lydia,” Delia Deetz practically hissed from the other side of the door. “Open up.”

Lydia looked at the door then back to Beetlejuice.

“You can’t be here.”   


He smirked. “Awe, babe, you’re no fun.”   


Lydia shoved him with her foot, pushing him towards the edge of the bed.

“I am not in the mood to have my wicked stepmother questioning why I have a ghost in my bed.”   


“Would she really be that shocked?” He asked with a chuckle. 

_ No,  _ Lydia thought.  _ She wouldn’t.  _ Instead she kept shoving him.

“Go away. Just until she leaves.”   


Beetlejuice heaved a dramatic sigh, pulled on his boots and stood up. He turned back to the bed and gave Lydia a mock salute and then he was gone. Lydia bit back a laugh, shaking her head as she hurried over to the door, yanking on her oversized sweater as she did. 

“Delia,” Lydia said, opening the door. “It’s...it’s the middle of the night.”   


“I know,” Delia said, pushing past Lydia and into the apartment, a large package in her arms. 

Lydia sighed and closed the door. 

“Why are you here?” She asked as she turned back to face Delia. “And what is that?” She nodded towards the box in Delia’s hands.

“Oh,” Delia said, looking down at it. She held it out to Lydia. “For you.”   


Lydia eyes Delia suspiciously but walked over and accepted the box anyway. It was heavy,  _ really  _ heavy. Lydia lugged the box over to the kitchen counter and plopped it down. She nervously opened the flaps and almost laughed when she saw what was inside.

She looked back at Delia, her smile still spread across her face. “Why are you giving me this?”   


“I thought...I don’t know,” Delia admitted. “I wanted to give you something to make you smile.”   


“Why?” Delia had never cared about Lydia’s happiness before so she couldn’t understand why she suddenly did now.

“Charles is sick, Lydia.”

Lydia’s smile vanished. “What?” She said softly.

Delia nodded and Lydia noticed that there were tears in her stepmother’s eyes.

“Cancer. They...Lydia they caught it too late. He doesn’t have much longer. That’s why I’m here. To ask you to come back home.”   


“To...say goodbye?”   


“Well,” Delia dropped Lydia’s gaze and looked down at her hands. She pulled her gloves off and began to fiddle with them. “Charles and I have discussed it, he’s…” she looked back up at Lydia, the tears finally falling, “he’s going to stay. In the house. With me. We thought you could come back and...the three of us could be a family again.”   


Lydia stared at Delia in disbelief. “We were never a family,” she said through gritted teeth.

Lydia walked away from the box and towards the door. “I think it’s time for you to go, Delia.”   


“Lydia, it’s what your father wants.”

“Is it?” Lydia snapped. “Or is it what  _ you  _ want? You couldn’t enslave the Maitlands for your stupid haunted house attractions so now you and my dad are gonna use his own death to finally get rich. Is that it? And how on earth will the Maitlands hide if Dad’s dancing around, doing the ghost act. The Maitlands told me all about the Netherworld bureaucracy bullshit. That stuff isn’t allowed. You could get the Maitlands in trouble. Get them punished. Get them exorcised,  _ again.”  _ She let the last word hang in the air between them. It was a pendulum swinging back and forth between them, waiting for the chance to slice them in half.

“Lydia,” Delia said, as calmly as she could manage. “I know what you think of me. What you’ve always thought of me. And I won’t lie and pretend that I’ve always been your biggest fan either. But regardless of all that, regardless of how we both... _ choose  _ to approach the supernatural, I love your father. And he loves me. So  _ he’s  _ decided to stay in Winter River. He’s decided to stay with me.”

Lydia glared at Delia. She hated this woman. And she hated herself for being so cliche as to hate her stepmother, but all Delia had done since the day she’d walked into Lydia’s life was clutter it with judgement and cruelty. And now here she was, taking away another thing from her. Chipping away at yet another weak spot in Lydia’s structure.

“And what about my mother?”

The fishing net silence fell.

“Like I said,” Delia said softly, “your father chose this.”

“I see,” Lydia said, fighting back her own tears. “So you win. As usual.”   


“Good God, Lydia,” Delia said, shaking her head. “Your father is going to die, this isn’t about winning or losing. This is about me getting to stay with the man I love and you getting to be able to come home to your father.”   


“I don’t want to!” Lydia screamed, her voice cracking as she did. The sound startling them both. “I left for a reason. I stayed away for a reason. And not once did either of you try to come and ask me to come home. You never called. You never wrote.”   


“Don’t be so dramatic, Lydia,” Delia said, rolling her eyes; her typical disdain for her stepdaughter returning. “We always sent a Christmas card.”   


Lydia laughed, shaking her head as she blinked back tears.

“You think a store bought card with a $50 bill makes up for everything? Jesus Christ you two don’t even bother to sign them ‘I love you,’ just your names.”

Delia crossed her arms. “Well now you’re just nitpicking.”   


“I’m not coming back to Winter River,” Lydia said, standing her ground. “I’ll come to the funeral, but if my dad is going to stay in the house with you and the Maitlands then it doesn’t matter if I come now or later.”

“This is cold,” Delia said. “Even for you.”   


Lydia said nothing. 

Delia sighed. She put her hands on her hips and began to pace back and forth.

“Is there anything else, Delia?”   


“Yes, actually. A woman from The Netherworld paid us a visit. She warned us that Beetlejuice is loose and that he might try to find you.” Delia’s pacing came to a halt as her eyes landed on the striped jacket strewn across the back of Lydia’s couch. Her eyes flickered back to Lydia’s. “But it looks like he already did.”

* * *

“I know you’re here,” Beetlejuice said to the starry sky as the woman from the walls materialized behind him.

“Has she fallen in love with you yet?” 

“Why?” He asked, taking a drag of his cigarette and continued to stare up at the sky. “Juno asking you to keep a timer or something?” The woman didn’t respond. Beetlejuice growled and turned around to face her. “What’d ya getting outta this? Why’re you helping that old bat?”

“I get to go home,” the woman said with an eerie smile that made even the poltergeist uncomfortable. 

His gaze traveled down her body to her wrists where ribbons just like Miss Argentina’s lined her veins. He scoffed and turned back to the sky.

“Baby, you are home.”

* * *

“What’re you talking about?” Lydia snapped, wiping the tears from her eyes.

Delia looked back at Lydia and then nodded at the jacket.

“That’s mine,” Lydia said, trying to fake nonchalance. “What does that have to do with him?”

“You just happen to own a jacket that looks exactly like his?”   


“His wedding suit was red, wasn’t it? Like my dress.” Lydia was grasping at straws.

Delia gave Lydia a pointed look. “The suit he was wearing before that, it was striped.”   


Lydia rolled her eyes. “Did you commit his entire wardrobe to memory?”   


“It smells like smoke in here, Lydia,” Delia said. "Wasn't he a smoker?"

“This whole building smells like smoke,” Lydia snapped. “Seriously, Delia. It’s a jacket. Relax. Because some weird Netherworld ghost lady told you Beetlejuice was loose you assume he’s here and I’m just, what? Living with him?” 

Delia narrowed her eyes at Lydia.

“When did Juno even tell you this?” 

“A few weeks ago.”   


Lydia tried to tell the butterflies in her stomach to calm down but they wouldn’t listen.

“So you think Beetlejuice has been hanging out here for weeks? And I’ve just been letting it happen?” Lydia felt absurd with every word that came out of her mouth. She prayed to God she was selling this act of disdain.

Delia sighed dramatically, telling Lydia that she wasn’t.

“Where is he?”   


“Probably up on the roof smoking.”  Lydia looked down as she said the last word and Delia closed her eyes as she sighed yet again. Lydia wanted to strangle her.

“ _Why_ is he here, Lydia?” Delia asked.

A thousand answers to Delia’s question buzzed through Lydia’s brain at once:  _ Because he’s my husband. Because he’s lonely. Because he likes my book collection and my hot chocolate. Because I finally slept with him. Because I’m pretty sure he’s got a hundred secrets he’s waiting for me to figure out.  _

“Because he wants to be.”

“Lydia, he tried to kill us. He tried to marry you. He tried—”

“He’s an all powerful poltergeist, Delia. You think I can just throw him out?” 

Lydia suspected that while she might not have been able to when he first came around to haunt her several weeks ago, that now if she sent him away he would stay away. 

“He’ll get bored, and he’ll leave. Most of the time I don’t even notice he’s here.”   


“Oh, Lydia,” Delia said in a pitying voice that drove Lydia insane. “You always were a terrible liar.”

Lydia ground her teeth together. “Well, you’ve given me the sad news, and the warning from Juno and…” she glanced at the box on her counter, “my gift. So you can get going and let me get back to bed now, thanks.”

“Lydia, please come home. Charles wants—”

“Did you two ever stop to think about what I want?” Lydia cut in. “Ever stop to ask why I left? Ask yourself now why I don’t want to come back to live in that haunted house and watch my father choose you over my mother.”

“I see,” Delia said, her voice clipped. “And what if your father went to your mother and then I died? Where would I go, Lydia?”

“I don’t care,” Lydia snapped, hating the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. She pressed her lips together into a thin line and watched as Delia’s eyes brimmed with tears.

“Here,” Delia said, reaching into her coat and producing an envelope. She walked over and set it down by the box. “It’s a train ticket for this Saturday. At least...come say goodbye.”   


She walked past Lydia and headed to the door. Lydia placed a hand on the envelope.

“Wait.” Delia turned around and looked back at her stepdaughter. “He’s not all bad,” Lydia said softly. “Beetlejuice.”   


“I see,” Delia said, but Lydia knew she didn’t. She never would.

Delia Deetz turned and left.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”
> 
> -The Secret History by Donna Tartt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY IT'S BEEN SO LONG! I've been working on an original web series, and writing and directing that consumed all my time, but the rest of the story is going to be coming in the next few weeks! Today's chapter is a little short but don't worry longer ones are coming VERY SOON! Thank you for all the support of this work, I'm so glad everyone's enjoying it. I hope you enjoy this brief chapter :)

Beetlejuice materialized in the apartment to find Lydia sitting on the kitchen counter, a mug of hot chocolate in her hands. Her bare feet dangled above the floor, absentmindedly swinging her legs back and forth, her heels gently banging against the counter. The thuds were matching in a rhythm that she found to be somewhat comforting. 

She had her eyes closed and as Beetlejuice slowly approached he could see that she was crying; the tears slowly sliding free one by one.

“Babe?”   


She opened her eyes and slowly looked up to take in the sight of her husband. He was sans coat and tie, his greenish hair as wild as ever. He smelled like coffee and cigarettes, and remnants of the lemon perfume she’d been wearing last night. His usually wild green eyes were boring into her with nothing but honest to God concern. She almost laughed at the sight of it. This was not the Beetlejuice Delia envisioned, this was not a version The Deetzs or the Maitlands could ever dream up or believe. This was  _ her _ Beetlejuice. The version that was only found in the quiet corners of the night, alone in this attic between the books and the coffee.

This was her home.

He was her home.

Not Winter River. Not her parents, or her ghost parents in the dusty attic. Not a town so small that big ideas got trapped and suffocated within its walls. 

“My father is dying,” she said softly, the tears dried on her cheeks, her voice so hollow you could hear her sadness echo.

Beetlejuice said nothing. He knew death better than anyone, and he knew how it haunted his wife. He knew she’d never known the Maitlands when they were alive so she hadn’t ever had to lose them. But what he didn’t know was why Lydia had a stepmother.

“Delia says he’s going to stay in Winter River. To be with her.”   


“I take it by the look on yer face that that’s not what ya want?”   


Lydia shook her head, ducking her chin down once more and trying to hide her falling tears.

“Babe,” he prompted again.

“He’s choosing Delia,” she whispered, “over my mother.”   


_ Oh,  _ Beetlejuice fully realized the extent of Lydia’s sorrow. It was, once again, a brand all too familiar to him. 

“Babe, sometimes people don’t make the choices we want them to.”   


“I know,” Lydia said through gritted teeth, looking back up at him. “Don’t condescend to me. I’m not a child.”   


He put his hands up in mock surrender.

“Woah, woah, baby, I know. I’m just saying—”

“No,” Lydia said firmly, shaking her head. “Don’t say anything. I don’t need you to. I don’t  _ want  _ you to.”   


He took a step towards her. “Okay, then what  _ do  _ you want?”   


“I want,” she took a shaky breath. “I want to be angry and sad. And I don’t want anyone to try and pack up my feelings and put them away. I don’t want to be told  _ how  _ to feel.”   


The ghost nodded. “Okay then.” He closed out the remaining space between them until he was standing right in front of her. He placed his palms flat on the counter on either side of her and leaned in close. “Then  _ be _ angry.” 

Lydia held his fiery gaze for a moment, a fire of her own welling up inside. Then she hurled her mug of hot chocolate across the room, shattering it against the wall, the dark liquid dripping like blood. She heaved a heavy breath as she let her eyes trail back to Beetlejuice’s. 

He smirked. “Ya still angry, babe?”

“Yes,” she whispered. 

Beetlejuice held her stare and watched as her fire began to dim and an ocean of sadness ebbed in to take its place. Her tears returned and this time she didn’t hide them from him. She let them fall freely.

“Delia wants me to come back.”   


“To Winter River?” Lydia nodded. “Do you  _ want  _ to go?”

“No. But...he’s going to die. If I don’t at least go say goodbye, doesn’t that make me a terrible person?”   


“Babe, unfortunately I don’t think I’m the best person to ask their opinion on that matter. I haven’t been a good person in a very long time.”   


“Were you ever?” Her words weren’t meant to wound, she was genuinely curious. She still knew so very little of who Beetlejuice was  _ before  _ he was Beetlejuice.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I try not to think about it anymore.”   


“About what? Being alive?”   


“Lydia,” he said, his voice rumbling low like a growl. 

Lydia stiffened a bit, realizing how uneasy the topic of living made him. At least when it came to  _ his  _ life. It was clearly something he had no desire to ever discuss. 

“What’s in the box?” He asked, trying desperately to change the subject.

“Oh,” Lydia said, having almost forgotten it was there. She reached into the box and pulled out the heavy sculpture inside. It was one Delia made years ago. It was a demonic head with a snake’s neck. It was Beetlejuice, in the form the Deetzs had first seen him in. 

Beetlejuice registered what Lydia was holding and then began to laugh. He looked up to see Lydia was laughing too.

“Delia made this,” she explained. “Years ago. Thought she was being artistic.”   


“Are you saying my likeness isn’t a masterpiece?” He asked with fake indignance.

Lydia laughed again, shaking her head. Her fire of anger and ocean of sorrow, beginning to recede in the face of this warm familiarity. She realized that this is what happiness was. Feeling completely content to just  _ be  _ with someone; wholly and completely and entirely as she was, not as some happier, brighter version of herself that others longed for her to be. 

“Beetlejuice,” she said, when their laughing had died down. He raised an eyebrow, telling her to continue. “Last night,” she saw him tense, and she suspected that he was preparing for her to declare it a mistake and something that was never going to happen again. 

It  _ was  _ what he thought was going to happen. It was what always happened to him. It seemed to him that the only women willing to love him were the ones that he paid. Lydia was smart and alive and stunning, and if he weren’t dead the sight of her last night would’ve taken his breath away. He wanted to be the kind of person a woman like her would want. But he wasn’t the optimist the ghost woman from the walls seemed to think he was.

“I’m glad last night happened,” Lydia said softly. 

“What?” He said in complete disbelief.

“Are you...not?”   


“Babe,” he reached up and cupped her face in his hands and brought her mouth to his, capturing her in a wondrous kiss. Lydia sighed against his lips and gave herself over to his embrace. When they finally broke apart he tangled his hands in her hair and murmured against her mouth: “I adored last night.”

Lydia smiled at him. “Let’s go out.”

He smirked back. “Where?”

“On a date. That’s what people do.”

Beetlejuice looked down at his tattered suit then back up at Lydia. “Not sure I’m quite publicly presentable.”   


Lydia took in his obviously ghostly appearance. “Can’t you disguise yourself?”

He smirked. “You asking me to turn on the juice and see what shakes loose?”

* * *

Lydia and Beetlejuice ventured out into the harsh winter air and down the street toward the subway.

“Where are we going?” He asked.

Lydia glanced over to take in Beetlejuice in his disguised form, and couldn’t help but giggle. He’d chosen fiery red hair, a freckled face, and a tall lanky frame. He was wearing round glasses, and a blazer with shoulder patches. He looked like he’d wandered out of a dark academia novel and Lydia found the whole thing highly amusing, if not also a bit alluring. She enjoyed how he looked in his natural form, but this specific brand of dress up  _ was _ appealing.

“To the bookstore.”

“Don’t ya own enough books?”   


“One can never own enough books.”   


Beetlejuice chuckled, shaking his head. And dutifully followed Lydia down the street. He knew that if himself from a few years ago, when he’d first laid eyes on her, could see himself now, then he’d be appalled by his behavior. The Ghost With the Most did not  _ obey  _ the wishes of the living, especially a young girl. But Lydia was the exception. He  _ needed  _ her to be the exception. He needed someone to break the pattern, and he would rather die a second time than learn that Lydia was in fact  _ not  _ the one that could save him from his curse.

* * *

A subway ride later and the two stood in a crowded indie bookstore, picking through various paperbacks. Lydia plucked one of the shelf title  _ The Secret History,  _ when she flipped it over to read the back and saw that it was a dark academia she couldn’t help but smile. It felt like fate.

“Pick out a book,” she told the poltergeist.

“I don’t need a book.”   


“Everyone needs a book.”

He shook his head again and ventured deeper into the stacks in search of a selection. Lydia wandered off on her own, collecting books as she went until a tidy stack was tucked under her arm, but she almost dropped them all when she rounded a corner and was face to face with the woman from the painting in the walls.


End file.
